A nurse treats a gunshot victim as he dies in the Arkansas mass shooting

Callie Weems was reveling in her new role as a mother in the months before a gunman in Arkansas fatally shot her in a grocery store.

Her daughter Ivy, now 10 months old, is a source of amusement and wonder, Weems’ mother, Helen Browning, 53, said in a phone interview Sunday as she shared memories of her daughter.

Weems, 23, was among four people wounded and 11 others wounded – including the suspected gunman – in pick it up at the Mad Butcher shop in Fordyce, Arkansas, Friday, according to authorities. Just an hour earlier, Weems was amazed that her daughter had let her sleep until 9 in the morning.

“‘I’m sure you feel like a new mom,'” Browning recalled texting back.

That was the last conversation they had before police say Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburg, opened fire inside the store, peppering the car with bullet holes as panicked bystanders ran for cover amid gunfire.

Weems, a nurse, died helping another gunshot victim, Arkansas State Police Director Mike Hagar said Sunday.

“Instead of running from the store, he stopped to offer help in one of the most selfless acts I’ve ever seen,” he said at a press conference.

In all, state police said 15 people were shot on Friday, including 12 civilians, two law enforcement officers, and a gunman.

This is at least the third mass shooting at a US grocery store in the past three years. In 2022, a white supremacist killed 10 black people at a Buffalo supermarket. That came more than a year after 10 people were shot dead at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.

Police said Sunday that Posey’s motive was still unclear, but that he did not appear to be related to the victims.

He was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, a pistol and a bandolier with dozens of additional shotguns, authorities said. He fired most, if not all, of the rounds, using a shotgun, opened fire on people in the parking lot before entering the store and fired “indiscriminately” at customers and employees, said Hagar.

Fordyce police and Dallas County sheriff’s deputies arrived within minutes, and Posey exited the store and exchanged gunfire with them before being shot and taken into custody.

For Browning, the tragedy was magnified by his relationship with another victim, Roy Sturgis, 50, who was also shot and killed. He said Sturgis was part of his family, a carpenter and a father who loved his daughter.

“Roy is a country like cornbread,” he said. “He lived a simple life. He was a simple man.”

The other victims who died were identified as Shirley Taylor, 62, and Ellen Shrum, 81.

Taylor cares for her husband, who has diabetes, and her crocheted daughter, Angela Atchley, told CBS affiliate KTHV in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“He was the rock of our family,” Atchley said.

“Like a war zone”

Fordyce, a town of about 3,200 people located 65 miles south of Little Rock, is reeling from the shooting, city councilman Roderick Rogers said Sunday.

He went to the store on Friday after people there asked for help.

“It’s like a war zone,” Rogers said, describing people shooting “like crazy” in the parking lot.

One witness, David Rodriguez, was at a gas station next to a grocery store when the shooting started. He told CBS News that he pulled into the gas station and “heard some popping” and at first thought it was fireworks. Then, he said, he heard sirens and saw police pull up, and “people just started running all over the place.”

Rodriguez grabbed his cell phone and started filming moments after hearing the shots. “Someone’s lying in the parking lot,” he was heard saying.

Rodriguez told CBS News, “It was pretty scary.”

Ken Vanderzwalm, who works three doors down from the grocery store at a lawn mower supplier, told CBS News several people ran into the store when the shooting started, “crying and screaming.” Vanderzwalm, a former police officer, who said he was armed, said he told people they would be “safe” inside the building.

“We have a lot of very traumatized kids,” he said.

Residents in the close-knit community are worried about the victims still in hospital and the possibility of more incidents, he said.

“A lot of people are scared,” he said. “They want to feel safe now.”

Hagar said the officers and deputies who responded to the scene knew the shooter and the victims, making the attack particularly difficult and personal.

The injured range in age from 20 to 65, police said. Five are still hospitalized, including a woman who is in critical condition.

Police said Posey, who is being held at the Ouachita County Detention Center, will be charged with four counts of capital murder.

A state police spokeswoman said Sunday she believed Posey had an attorney, but she did not know the person’s name.

Browning said Posey went to school with his youngest sister, and she never thought he could act so violently.

He plans to raise Ivy now.

“He will know that his mother loves him,” he said. “And he was the ray of sunshine in my mother’s eyes.”