As law enforcement officials scrambled to find a motive behind the Arkansas grocery store shooting that killed three and wounded 11, harrowing tales of people clambering for cover began to surface, including how a mom and her children cowered in a freezer.
Gunfire erupted at the Mad Butcher store in Fordyce, Ark., about an hour south of Little Rock, at about 11:30 a.m. Friday, sending people inside the grocery in a frantic search for safety.
A video clip posted on social media showed alleged shooter Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburgh, firing on police in the parking lot. He also sustained non life-threatening wounds.
Katrina Doherty, 39, was shopping with her 18-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son when the shooting began, leaving the mother initially thinking something had fallen off the shelves, CNN reported.
Then she saw glass shatter and a person nearby drop to the ground.
She, her children and other shoppers quickly followed a couple of store workers into a freezer.
"We ran in there really fast. We still heard gunshots keep going off," Doherty said, adding that she counted about nine or 10 shots, CNN reported. "It was like slow motion. My daughter was like 'Mama, pinch me, this can't be real.' And I was like, 'Baby, it's real.'"
She said her son began to cry but they calmed him down, hoping the noise wouldn't attract the shooter.
"We were just sitting there and praying. I was in panic mode. My son about froze to death. We tried to get him quiet, but he was saying he wanted his daddy. It felt like we were in there forever," Doherty said, CNN reported.
"We were in there maybe 15 minutes. I was asking the Lord to protect over everybody. I was just praying. The other lady, she was praying. She was crying," Doherty added.
David Rodriguez was pulling into a gas station nearby when he heard "pops" that he first thought were fireworks.
But then he noticed the Mad Butcher's windows were shattered and saw panic-stricken shoppers running away.
"The police started to show up, and then there was massive gunfire and ambulances pulling up," he said, the Associated Press reported. "The bullets were just flying."
Two police officers who confronted the shooter and exchanged fire with him were also wounded with non life-threatening injuries.
Posey was arrested and charged with three counts of capital murder. Other charges are pending.
He is being held in the Ouachita County jail.
Police said the motive for the shooting remains unclear.
A mass shooting last week at a Michigan splash park for kids that injured nine still appears to be a random attack, according to police. Investigators have been unable to find any connection between the park and shooter Michael William Nash, 42, who was later found dead in a nearby house with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A cache of 11 other guns were found in Walsh house. He reportedly had a history of mental illness and believed he was being tracked by the government.
There have been 234 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
