4 killed, man arrested in Memphis shootings after grisly live stream

A 19-year-old man was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after four people died in multiple shootings Wednesday in Memphis, one of which was livestreamed on Facebook.

The suspect, whom police identified as Ezekiel D. Kelly, was in custody hours after shootings in at least eight locations prompted a citywide alert. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis confirmed the four fatalities at a news conference early Thursday, calling the previous day’s events a “mobile mass shooting.” She said three others were wounded, including an employee of an AutoZone who was critically injured and is in the hospital. The shooting at the AutoZone was shown on Facebook Live, she said.

Court records show Kelly was released from prison this year after serving 11 months of a three-year sentence for aggravated assault. Police have yet to release the identities of the shooting victims, though names have been circulating on social media. “It is certainly an anomaly for us to experience so much in such a short period of time,” Davis said at the news conference. The shootings occurred just days after the abduction and death of Eliza Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher. Last week, a police officer was shot in the city.

A health clinic in western Memphis said Thursday that one of its employees, Allison Parker, was among the victims of the Wednesday shootings.

Jenny Berger, a woman who posted on social media that she is the daughter of Rodolfo Berger, who was shot in the AutoZone, said her father is out of surgery but will need another surgery in the coming days.

“Today my dad was a victim of a senseless act of violence,” Berger wrote on her Facebook page. “… He was at the wrong place at the wrong time … minding his own business and someone came in and shot him while they were going live on Facebook. I’m still thinking I’m going to wake up from this viral nightmare.”

Video of the shooting has been deleted from a Facebook page appearing to be Kelly’s, and a related Instagram account appeared to have been taken down Wednesday night.

“This is no way for us to live, and it is not acceptable,” Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland told reporters early Thursday morning, saying residents of the city face the type of violence “none should have to face.”

The Facebook Live video was identified and removed from the social media platform before the Memphis Police Department issued its first public alert, Erica Sackin, a spokeswoman for Facebook parent company Meta, told the Washington Post in an email.

“We are working closely with law enforcement on this matter,” Sackin said.

Kelly crashed a Dodge Challenger before being cornered by police in the city’s Whitehaven area. He was not injured in the crash, police said. Two weapons were visible inside the vehicle when Kelly was found, Davis told reporters. Police had reported Kelly driving a light-blue Infiniti, then a gray Toyota with Arkansas plates, before he crashed the Dodge. Police in Southaven, a city south of Memphis, said he is a suspect in a motor vehicle theft at a gas station there.

Police had warned residents to shelter in place and stay indoors as the suspect remained at large. The city halted trolley and bus services and suspended the annual Delta Fair & Music Festival. The University of Memphis locked its doors and urged its community to stay off the streets, warning of a person “who has been shooting randomly across the city.”

In the live-streamed Facebook video, which the Post viewed before it was removed, a man appears to walk into an auto-parts store, aim a gun at another man and pull the trigger.