A 19-year-old man was fatally shot in the parking lot of a Little Rock Kroger on Sunday night, police said.
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Photos by Emma Pettit
Photos by Emma Pettit
Brent Cartwright of Little Rock died after he was shot outside the grocery store at 6420 Colonel Glenn Road, according to a police report.
Officers responded to the parking lot at 11 p.m. after hearing multiple shots fired in the area, Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Steven McClanahan said at the scene Monday.
The officers were in the area on an unrelated call, the report said.
As police arrived, multiple vehicles were speeding away from the the area, McClanahan said,
Police found a black handgun in the parking lot next to blood on the ground, the report said.
Several storefronts of the surrounding businesses -- Metro PCS, H&R Block and Kroger -- had been struck by bullets, McClanahan said.
Witness Curtis Coleman told police he pulled into the parking lot and saw a man rolling around on the ground, according to the police report.
The victim got up, yelling and hopping, and what appeared to be a red-colored vehicle pulled up, Coleman told police. Coleman said the driver threw the shooting victim inside the vehicle and they sped off, heading east on Colonel Glenn Road, the report said.
A red vehicle dropped Cartwright off at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary for treatment, according to the report. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, police 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 heard 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 bandannas. He has been part of a community nonviolence group for years and was fashioning a cross knotted with red and blue bandannas 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."
Officer Steve Moore, a Police Department spokesman, said it's unclear who owned the handgun found at the scene. The investigation into the slaying is ongoing.
Cartwright had multiple brushes with the law during his early teenage years.
In February 2015, Cartwright was charged in the burglary of an apartment on South Rodney Parham Road with others, according to online court records. He later pleaded guilty to residential burglary and theft of property, documents show.
In December of that year, he also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in a different case, according to court records.
The death is the 10th homicide of the year in Little Rock.
Metro on 03/21/2017