A shooting late Sunday at a Kum & Go convenience store in Springfield, Missouri, has killed four people, including a police officer, police said in a release posted online.
Another person in the store and a second officer was wounded in the shooting. The suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
“In essence, we had a roving active shooter moving from the south side of the city up — we think up Ingram Mill and over to Highway 65 and then to Chestnut where it ended at the Kum & Go,” Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams said at a morning press conference.
The first shooting call came in about 11:25 p.m. in the area of Battlefield Road and South Lone Pine Avenue. While officers were en route to that location, police received multiple calls reporting shootings, including one at 2100 S. Ingram Mill Road and another at Sunshine Street and U.S. 65 highway.
About 11:40 p.m. another call came in reporting that a vehicle had crashed at the Kum & Go at 2885 E. Chestnut Expressway. A person armed with a gun entered the store and started to shoot customers and employees, police said. Springfield police officers Josiah Overton and Christopher Walsh responded to that shooting call and were the first to arrive.
The shooter fired at and wounded Overton and Walsh immediately upon their arrival. Other officers responding to the area removed the two injured officers and made their way into the store, police said.
Once inside, the officers found the shooter dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. The shooter has not been publicly identified.
Officers also found three others dead and one person injured with a gunshot wound. The injured person was taken to a hospital, police said. The victims have not been identified. It was not known if the people shot were customers or employees.
Officer Walsh suffered a fatal gunshot wound and died at the hospital. Overton was being treated at a hospital.
Walsh, a U.S. Army veteran who was active in the Army Reserves, had been with the department for more than three years. Overton has been with the Springfield Police Department for two years.
“Both of these officers showed significant bravery, were heroic in their actions and we ask that you respect their families’ privacy at this time,” Police Chief Paul Williams said at a morning press conference.
Police had no idea of the motive behind the shooting, Williams said.
“It is way too early. I’ll just leave it at that,” he said in response to a question on how officers are coping. “We’re still actively investigating multiple crime scenes and dealing with grieving over the loss of one of our own.”
___
© 2020 The Kansas City Star
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
