One dead – three injured
Mask dispute escalates: Man shoots supermarket cashier in Georgia
– The police were able to arrest the customer at the crime scene (symbol image) © Alexandre Marchi/ / Picture Alliance
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by Marc Drewello
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In a supermarket in the US state of Georgia, a cashier and a customer had an argument about wearing a mask. The conflict ended fatally for the woman.
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One dead and three injured: This is the result of a dispute over the wearing of respirators against the coronavirus in a supermarket in Decatur, Georgia.
A 30-year-old man had entered the shop in the 26,000-inhabitant city in DeKalb County on Monday at 1:10 p.m., as the investigative authority Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced. While paying, he got into an argument with the cashier about his face mask.
“There has been a confrontation, an argument – I’m not sure what exactly – about wearing masks,” DeKalb County Police Chief Melody Maddox told a news conference. She does not know what it was about in detail.
Customer shoots cashier and security guard
According to the GBI, the customer initially left the Big Bear supermarket without shopping after the dispute. But he immediately returned to the store and went straight to the cashier. There he had drawn a handgun and shot the woman.
When a retired district sheriff who worked as a security guard in the supermarket tried to intervene, the man fired at him too. The guard and the customer had an exchange of fire in which both were injured. The attacker tried to crawl out of the front door of the shop. But there he was arrested by two arriving police officers.
The security guard was hit by two bullets, according to Maddox, but was wearing a bulletproof vest. He was treated in a hospital and is in stable condition. The customer was admitted to another clinic and his condition was also stable.
