Police Friday in Collierville, TN identified the gunman who shot 15 people at a Kroger store Thursday as Uk Thang, reports the Daily Memphian.
Police Chief Dale Lane confirmed the identity of the gunman who shot and killed himself as police arrived to the scene.
One of the 15 other people shot has also died. That person has been identified as Olivia King.
Lane refused at first to identity the shooter.
“I’m not going to give him notoriety in this platform,” the chief said. “…We’re just not going to do it in this venue.”
He later revealed the name after the news conference.
According to Heavy, the shooting started in the deli. People were found hiding in freezers, closets and behind pallets.
Lane called the mass shooting “the most horrific event that occurred in Collierville history.”
“It breaks my heart,” he said.
WREG in Memphis reports police searched Thang’s residence in Collierville Thursday night. Authorities took evidence from the home and are currently processing it. They also questioned one person.
The station described Thang as a third party vendor working at Kroger.
No motive for the shooting has been released.
King is remembered as a selfless person who regularly attended the Catholic Church of the Incarnation in Collierville.
“Everyone needs to be more like Olivia,” said Maureen Fraser to the New York Times. Fraser is the the vice mayor of Collierville and has known King since the mid-1990s. “Kind, generous, caring, selfless,” she said.
King has been a widow since 2005 when her husband died. She lived until recently with one of her three sons and his children until they moved to Ohio.
Her son told the Times she died after emergency responders tried to perform CPR.
“I apologize for the graphic details, but this type of crime needs to stop being glossed over and sanitized,” Wes King wrote. “No one deserves this.”
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