Supermarket gunman was a sushi vendor, family friend says

COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A gunman who killed one person and wounded 14 others in a Tennessee grocery store worked in a sushi business at the store and was the son of refugees from Myanmar who had settled in Nashville, a family friend said Friday.

The shooter was identified by police as UK Thang, a “third-party vendor” who police said worked at the Kroger in Collierville on a daily basis. He died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound within a couple of minutes of police arriving at the Kroger in the upscale suburb outside of Memphis.

The victims included 10 employees and five customers, police said. On Friday, some of the wounded were still in critical condition and fighting for their lives, Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane said at a morning news conference.

Lane identified the woman who was killed as Olivia King. Friends told The Commercial Appeal she was a widowed mother of three.

On Facebook, one of King’s sons, Wes King, wrote that he had spoken to the trauma surgeon and learned his mother was shot in the chest.

“They tried to save her at the hospital to no avail,” he wrote. “I apologize for the graphic details, but this type of crime needs to stop being glossed over and sanitized. No one deserves this.”

Police searched the shooter’s home Thursday and removed electronic devices.

“We all want to know the why,” Lane said of the shooter’s motive. “But today, less than 24 hours (after the shooting), we’re not ready to tell you that.”

The shooter’s parents live in Nashville and are part of a community of Christian refugees from Myanmar who have settled there, according to Aung Kyaw, a friend of the family who came to pray with them at their home on Friday.

Kyaw said Thang had a sushi business that operated...