Police responded around 6:30 a.m. to reports of a gunman at a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi, on the border with Tennessee.
Mayor Darren Musselwhite of Southaven said that a “disgruntled” employee set off chaos at the store, lighting a fire inside and taking aim at a supervisor. The gunman went out a side door chasing a store manager, who was killed in a parking lot, Musselwhite said.
Authorities responded to the Walmart within three minutes of the first 911 call and found the gunman in the parking lot, Chief Macon Moore of the Southaven Police Department said at a news conference.
A police officer was shot in the back during a confrontation with the gunman and was recovering at a hospital, according to city officials. “He was saved by his vest,” the chief said.
The gunman was shot twice by police and was in surgery late Tuesday morning, the chief said. His identity has not been released, and a Walmart representative did not respond to questions about the details of his employment.
Authorities also did not publicly identify the victims.
“These people were doing the same thing that you and I do every day, showing up for work in an attempt to provide for their families, and then became victims of a senseless violent act,” Moore said.
In a statement Tuesday, Walmart said that the company was “heartbroken by the loss of two valued members of our team.”
“We feel tragedies like this personally, and our hearts go out to the families of our two associates and the officer who was injured,” the statement said.
The shooting shut down the Walmart in Southaven, a city of about 55,000 in northern Mississippi, about 13 miles from Memphis, Tennessee. Police cars and crime scene tape blocked off access to the store, where authorities said they had also responded to reports of a fire and a suspicious package.
“It’s still very fluid,” Moore said late Tuesday morning.
The chief, who did not take questions at the news conference, said that police officers had undergone active shooter training this month. That training, he said, “saved lives today.”
After the shooting, Walmart employees, some still in their uniforms, gathered in a circle outside the store and held hands in prayer, according to a local reporter at the scene.
Musselwhite said there was “a lot of sadness in the city” after the shooting, which he called a “sign of the times.” On Sunday, three people, including two children, were killed in a shooting at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California.
“I personally knew the store manager, so I’ll admit it’s pretty tough on me,” he said. “It’s a nightmare. It is the kind of event that everyone dreads.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.