Not many details yet. I understand that there are at least 14 injured and 1 fatality. It’s unclear whether that death is the gunman or not.
Updates are being posted here:
Now reporting the gunman is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.
We need to put Prozac in the water supply.
You’re assuming these wackos drink water - might be better off putting it in the beer supply.
On second thought, what I had first posted was not appropriate for this thread. My apologies.
I work in a grocery store. People from all walks of life shop and work together every day. Covid, masks, labor shortage, long lines, careless staff, entitled Karens and lots of decent folks dealing with their own personal issues and demons. Increased poverty looks up upon increased prices.
While these ingredients might have lead to a bit of serious trouble before the last few years, they now foster aggression instead of cooperation. This is more than just the rule. It is the default human action. Nothing that occurs in a Grocery should be enough to lead from anger to violence. But it does. The fear is that more of these are coming and there are plenty of guns for the mix.
I also work in a grocery store.
Over the past year and a half we have had a few outbreaks of genuine physical violence. The very small upside is that this has, so far, involved fists and not weaponry.
I dread a shooting at my workplace. I hope our luck continues to hold.
The word “third party vendor” keeps getting used. I first heard of supermarket “third party vendors” from my brother. I was talking with him about the price of Sushi and I mentioned that my local supermarket sold sushi at a decent price. He explained that the people behind the counter making the sushi were not supermarket employees; they were “third party vendors” who arranged, for a fee, to use counter space and to sell their goods to daily shoppers.
He indicated that it was the same for the counter space next to them that sold hot scrambled eggs and bacon by the pound as well as breakfast sandwiches.
Now, I have no idea what the fee structure is; the food gets rung up at the register by bar code the same as anything else sold in the store. Selling food in a supermarket I’ve heard from former managers, means razor thin margins and that volume keeps the store afloat. Did the store change the fee structure/rent? Did they cancel his contract? Was an expensive food item returned that would have wiped out his earnings for the week? Did someone just keep at him until he snapped?
( As a kid, I once saw a customer trying to jam a tomato up into a grocer’s face while yelling, "smell that; it’s not fresh! Smell that…! )
It’s impossible to say without guessing. I will say that he was 100% wrong the day he woke up & ever thought that it would be a good idea to bring a gun / ammo to work.
Well actually it now looks like there is a good possibility he snapped because he was fired:
Police haven’t given a motive in the shooting, but Kroger employee Lawanda Clark recalls overhearing managers talking about firing Thang the night before.
“They had to walk the guy out yesterday morning. I think it was round about 9:00,” said Clark. “His boss came and they were talking to him about what happened. They had to walk him out and he didn’t really want them to walk him out. They said they were gonna call the police. But I guess he left at that point.”
So perhaps he left and came back with a gun?
A little more information about him:
It’s a sad update. I wasn’t trying to hit any nail on the head re: Sushi; it’s just one of two third party vendors that I use at the market by me. ( Sometimes I like sushi ).
When a company walks you to the door, it’s bad but it’s survivable when applying for another job. Workplace violence isn’t. Box up your things, be on your way… life goes on.
No gun has ever gotten anyone to give a gunman their job back. No murder at a workplace can ever be justified down the road. Even thoughts/fantasies of that are a Really bad sign. If you’ve lost a job and have some dark thoughts, I urge you: please lock up your unloaded gun(s) and please talk to someone. People want to help you through this.
The vast majority of people - even unpleasant, argumentative people - who are escorted out the door of a former employer do not react by coming back the next day with a gun and shooting people.
When this happens I always assume there is something else going on with the perpetrator beyond just getting fired. It’s unlikely, though, that we the general public will ever know all the details.