A man died Tuesday night in a shooting outside his workplace, afterhours, in Little Rock, police reported.
Officers responded about 10:45 p.m. to Shackleford Crossings shopping center at 2600 S. Shackleford Road. They found Cortez Ferrell, 26, lying in the J.C. Penney parking lot bleeding from his upper body, according to a police report. Ferrell had been shot. He was taken to Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, where he died.
Ferrell worked at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in the shopping center, police said. The restaurant closed at 10 p.m. Two of Ferrell's co-workers reportedly saw the shooting.
"I don't know if they were getting off [work] but they were able to tell the detectives that they heard gunfire, and they were able to describe the suspect's vehicle," police spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said.
Andrea Harris, 23, said Ferrell had been in an argument with a man in a light-blue Lincoln Town Car, according to the report. She said the man -- described as only as black and between the ages of 28 and 35 -- shot Ferrell during the confrontation.
Melvin Frazier, 28, gave police a similar account of the shooting. He said Ferrell walked up to the Town Car and, after an argument, the man shot Ferrell once and fled, the report states.
Harris and Frazier did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.
Davis said officers searched the area after the shooting. They found the gunman's vehicle about 6 miles away in the 4900 block of West 29th Street, a residential area. Police impounded the car as evidence.
Detectives on Wednesday were obtaining a search warrant for the car, Davis said.
Davis and police spokesman Lt. Sidney Allen both said investigators had identified a "person of interest" in the case, but no arrests had been made.
Business continued Wednesday at Cracker Barrel. Several customers sat on rocking chairs outside the entrance and browsed the gift shop. Employees declined to speak to a reporter.
A TV news cameraman filmed in the parking lot where Ferrell was shot.
Allen said he didn't know whether investigators had viewed surveillance footage from businesses in the shopping center.
"It happened late at night and I don't know what, if any, footage they got, and if they did get any, what it would reveal. But that's one of their general things, to pull video," he said.
Court records show that Ferrell lived in Little Rock and had a daughter born in 2012.
His slaying the city's eighth homicide this year.
Metro on 04/23/2015