Police have identified the 19-year-old who was fatally shot in the parking lot of a Kroger grocery store late Sunday night in Little Rock.
Officers arrived around 11 p.m. at the parking lot of the store at 6420 Colonel Glenn Road after they heard multiple shots fired in the area, Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Steven McClanahan said at the scene Monday.
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Photos by Emma Pettit
Photos by Emma Pettit
As police arrived, multiple vehicles were speeding away from the the area, McClanahan said, adding that officers then located a handgun and a large amount of blood on the ground by one of the cart returns in the lot. Several storefronts of the surrounding businesses — Metro PCS, H&R Block and Kroger — had been struck by bullets, he said.
Later Sunday night, police got word that a maroon car, possibly an Impala, transported a victim from the crime scene to CHI St. Vincent in Little Rock. That victim, identified as 19-year-old Brent Cartwright of Little Rock, was pronounced dead at the hospital, McClanahan said. There are no other known victims of the shooting, he added.
Detectives processed the crime scene, marked off several bullet holes and interviewed a few witnesses, McClanahan said, though he said investigators had little by way of suspect information. Anyone who might know something is encouraged to come forward and can do so anonymously, he said.
Little Rock resident Earnest Franklin said he heard cars “raging up and down” Colonel Glenn Road, revving their engines and spinning their wheels late Sunday. Franklin, who lives near the Kroger, said he and his wife listened to a string of gunfire and learned Monday morning someone had been killed.
Franklin pulled his pickup into the parking lot Monday armed with a set of stakes, a hammer, a Bible and bandanas. He has been part of a community non-violence group for years and was fashioning a cross knotted with red and blue bandanas to drive into the ground, he said. The colors represent gang violence, Franklin said, and the cross will mark Cartwright’s death.
“We need to speak up and speak out,” Franklin said. “We need more God than we do guns.”
Cartwright's death is Little Rock's 10th homicide of the year. The investigation is ongoing.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
EARLIER:
Authorities in Little Rock are investigating an overnight homicide.
The Little Rock Police Department said one person was killed in a parking lot at 6420 Colonel Glenn Road. That address is listed online as a Kroger grocery store just west of University Avenue.
Police did not list a cause of death or the time of the killing, saying only that it happened overnight. Dispatch records show officers were called to a nearby address to investigate "unknown trouble" at 12:30 a.m. Monday.
The victim's name has not been released and police said no suspect information was yet known.
Check back for updates.
