At Least 13 People Shot at a Kroger Market in Tennessee

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At least 13 people were shot at a Kroger supermarket in a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday afternoon. 

“It breaks my heart to have to stand before you today,” Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane said in a press conference. “We’ve had an incident here in Collierville that has occurred all over the country.”

Lane said their department received reports of an active shooter inside the supermarket at 1:30 p.m. local time. When officers arrived on the scene, they discovered that “multiple people” had been shot. The SWAT team began the process of going “aisle to aisle, room to room” and evacuated the customers and employees who were hiding in freezers and offices. 

The shooter was also found dead—they believe from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. At least one of the 13 gunshot victims had died, Lane said. He didn’t have specific information about the conditions of the other victims, but said that their injuries were “very, very serious.” He also warned that the number of casualties may change as they go through the supermarket. 

Lane said the shooter's car was found in the Kroger parking lot. 

He said that the crime scene was “massive,” and that after his 13 years in law enforcement, he’d never seen anything like what he witnessed inside Kroger. 

Federal agents with the FBI and ATF are on the ground assisting in the investigation. 

Tennessee’s hospital system is already stretched incredibly thin due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Soaring numbers of very sick people has overwhelmed medical facilities, and the Tennessee National Guard has deployed members to assist with the crisis.