One person has been killed and three others injured in a shooting at a southern Missouri convenience store, with a 28-year-old male suspect taken into custody.
The shooting took place Saturday morning at a Snappy Mart convenience store in Koshkonong, a small town of about 200 people on the Missouri-Arkansas border.
The suspect, a 28-year-old man from Thayer, was arrested in neighboring Howell County hours later following a tip-off.
The identities of the suspect and the victims – who were all customers of the 24/7 store – have not been released but police said the shooter knew at least one of the people he shot.
No motive has been given for the attack.
One person has been killed and three others injured in a shooting at a southern Missouri convenience store, with a 28-year-old male suspect taken into custody. Pictured the scene
The deadly incident unfolded around 5:15 am Saturday morning when the suspect walked into the Snappy Mart with a handgun and shot four people, Missouri Highway Patrol’s Public Information Officer Jeff Kinder said in a press briefing.
Officers responded to the scene after a clerk dialed 911 to report the shooting.
They arrived to find one person dead from their injuries while the other three victims were transported to hospital with critical injuries.
Several other witnesses inside the store were unharmed in the attack.
Kinder said the three surviving victims were initially taken to Ozarks Hospital in West Plains and were then transfered to a Springfield area hospital.
Their conditions are not clear.
The suspect appears to have fled the scene and was located and taken into custody around four hours later.
Oregon County Sheriff Eric King said in the briefing that authorities tracked down the suspect after receiving tips of sightings of his vehicle.
King said the shooter’s identity will be revealed after formal charges have been filed.
Authorities are not looking for anyone else in connection to the shooting.
The identities of the victims were also not revealed in the briefing with King saying authorities were still working on notifying the deceased victim’s next of kin.
‘He was from out of state,’ King said.
Oregon County Sheriff Eric King in a press briefing. The shooting took place Saturday morning at a Snappy Mart convenience store in Koshkonong
Missouri Highway Patrol’s Public Information Officer Jeff Kinder said in a press briefing the suspect, a 28-year-old man from Thayer, was arrested in neighboring Howell County hours later following a tip-off
Two of the surviving victims are also from out of state with the third a local resident. At least two of the people shot knew each other and were traveling in the same vehicle.
No further details were given about their identities.
Investigators believe the shooter is connected to at least one of the victims but did not say how.
‘We’re pretty almost positive that at least one of the victims had interactions with or knew [the suspect],’ said King.
King said there was no knowledge of any warning leading up to the attack but that authorities are still investigating and a motive is not yet clear.
It is also not yet clear if the suspect had a prior criminal record, he said.
The attack is the latest in a string of mass shootings across America in recent months prompting Joe Biden to clamp down on gun laws this week.
Back on March 16, Robert Aaron Long, 21, is accused of killing eight people – six of them Asian women – in a series of attacks at three Atlanta spas.
President Joe Biden announcing new gun control measures Thursday following a string of mass shootings in recent weeks
The following week, gunman Ahmad Alissa then allegedly shot dead ten people including a police officer, in a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.
The next day, a shooting at a Southern California office building left four people dead, including a child.
Last Saturday, a mass shooting at a house party in Wilmington, North Carolina left three people dead and four injured.
On Wednesday, former NFL pro Phillip Adams allegedly shot six people, killing his former doctor, the doctor’s wife and two young grandchildren and an air con repairman, in Rock Hill, South Carolina before taking his own life.
The next day an employee killed one person and injured five others in a mass shooting at a custom cabinet maker in Texas before fleeing the scene and wounding a responding state trooper.
The same day, the president unveiled a series of executive orders designed to curb gun violence in the wake of the series of mass shootings.
The six actions include: a crackdown on the proliferation of ‘ghost guns,’ which are built from kits; tighten requirements on pistol braces that allow for more accurate shooting; the Department of Justice will publish ‘red flag’ legislation for the states; invest in evidence-based community violence interventions; and DoJ will issue an annual report on gun trafficking.
Biden said mass shootings in America are a ‘public health crisis’ and argued he was not trying to impinge on the Second Amendment – a claim gun rights groups and Republicans have made against the introduction gun control laws.
‘Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment. These are phony arguments, suggesting that these are second amendment rights at stake,’ he said.
Biden pointed out the multiple mass homicides carried out using guns as well as the $280 billion cost per year of gun violence to the nation.
‘Gun violence in our neighborhood is having profound impact on our children, even if they’re never involved,’ he said.
‘We can save lives, create safe and healthy communities, and build economies that work for all of us, and save billions of American dollars.’
