By Daniel Trota
(Reuters) – One of four people killed in a mass shooting at an Arkansas grocery store was a 23-year-old nurse who was shot and killed while caring for another victim, police said on Sunday.
“Instead of fleeing the store, she stopped to render aid in one of the most selfless acts I have ever seen,” Col. Mike Hagar, director of the Arkansas State Police, said of nurse Callie Weems.
The gunman opened fire with a shotgun shortly before noon Friday at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, a town of 3,200 about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Little Rock, killing four people and wounding nine. .
The suspect, identified as Travis Eugene Posey, 44, was also wounded in a shootout with police and will be charged with four counts of capital murder, authorities said.
Weems, who comes from three generations of nurses, loved riding horses and was nicknamed “Woodrow” after the character Woodrow Call from the book and television series “Lonesome Dove,” the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported, citing an interview with her father. Tommy Weems.
“He died doing what he always did: helping,” Weems said.
Investigators have yet to determine a motive for what Hagar called a “completely random and senseless act.”
He said the shooter began shooting indiscriminately in the parking lot and then inside the store, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun and a handgun and shooting primarily pellets.
“During the incident, we saw the best and the worst of humanity,” Hagar said, praising six police officers who stood between the shooter and civilians.
Two of the injured were officers, police said.
In addition to Weems, the fatal victims were identified as Shirley Taylor, 62, Roy Sturgis, 50, and Ellen Shrum, 81.
The surviving victims are between 20 and 65 years old.