Kroger Shooting Live Updates: 1 Dead in Collierville, Tenn., Shooting

imagePolice responded Thursday to the scene of a shooting at a Kroger grocery store in Collierville, Tennessee.Credit…Houston Cofield for the New York Times

A gunman opened fire in a grocery store in Collierville, Tennessee Thursday, killing one person and injuring at least 12 people before shooting himself, authorities said.

Authorities said they received a report at 1:30 p.m. of a shooting in a Kroger store in Collierville, about 30 miles east of Memphis.

The first police car arrived at 1:34 pm, and officers flooded the area, walking from aisle to aisle and room to room helping injured victims and escorting staff out of hiding. Some have hidden in refrigerators and locked offices, said Dale Lane, the police chief of Collierville, at a press conference.

He said the attacker died and was believed to have been killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooter’s vehicle was still in the parking lot, he said.

Chief Lane declined to say if the attacker was an employee of the store and said this was part of the investigation. The injuries suffered by the victims were “very serious”.

The shooting was “the most terrible event in Collierville history,” he said.

Glenda McDonald, a Kroger employee, told Fox 13, a local TV station, that she was at the store when she heard a shot that sounded like it was coming from the deli. She said she ran out the front door.

“Several people were shot – some customers and employees,” she told the broadcaster, adding that she did not know what the attacker looked like. “The only thing I heard was the gunshots.”

Brignetta Dickerson, who said she worked at Kroger for 32 years, told local reporters she was standing at a till when she heard gunshots.

“He started popping that gun,” she told WREG-TV. “It sounded a bit like a balloon bursting. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap – just as.”

She said she pretended to be dead and saw a male employee shot in the head. He could still speak, she said.

“This isn’t going to stop me from working,” she said. “I’ll work on that.”

Regional One Health, a hospital in Memphis, had admitted nine patients, according to a spokeswoman. Four were in critical condition and five were in “non-critical condition,” she said.

Kroger said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened by the incident”.

“The entire Kroger family offers our thoughts, prayers and support to the individuals and families of the victims during this difficult time,” Kroger said in a statement.

The company added that it is working with local law enforcement agencies.

“The store remains closed during the police investigation and we have started advisory services for our employees,” said Kroger.

Memphis police said their officers were at the scene and “helped secure the perimeter and crime scene.”

Local news channels showed a line of ambulances with flashing lights in the store, as well as a group of staff gathered with police officers in the parking lot.

Alyssa Lukpat contributed to the reporting.

Outside the scene of a shootout at a Kroger grocery store in Collierville, Tennessee, on Thursday.Credit…Houston Cofield for the New York Times

Thursday’s shooting in Collierville, Tennessee came six months after a man armed with a military-style semi-automatic rifle and pistol opened fire at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10 people, including a policeman. King Soopers is owned by Kroger.

No motive for this attack has been publicly stated.

In October 2018, a white man shot dead two blacks in a racially motivated attack in a Kroger store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. The man, Gregory Bush, was sentenced to life in prison last year after pleading guilty but being mentally ill for the murders of Vickie Lee Jones and Maurice E. Stallard.

In August, one person was killed and another injured in a shooting in the Kroger parking lot in Sandy Springs, Georgia, a northern suburb of Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The newspaper said the shooting was the result of a botched drug deal.