Easter Sunday shooting in Nashville restaurant kills 1 man and injures 5 others
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A man was killed and five other people were injured during a shooting inside a Nashville, Tennessee, restaurant on Easter Sunday, police said.
The shooting around 3 p.m. in Nashville’s Salemtown neighborhood began within minutes of the male suspect’s arrival at the restaurant with a woman, police said.
The suspect and the man who died got into an argument that “significantly escalated within moments,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said during a news conference at the scene.
Police later identified the deceased man as Allen Beachem, 33. The conditions of the other victims were not immediately released.
“Tragically, Easter was disrupted by gun violence in my neighborhood at one of our wonderful small businesses,” Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “My heart goes out to those who had their holiday disrupted by gun violence.”
Police identified a 46-year-old suspect and the car used to flee the scene with images from security video provided by the restaurant. They located the car overnight but were still searching for the suspect on Monday. Police posted photos of the shooting scene on social media, including an image of a man pointing a handgun, to aid in the search.
“The gunman was the only one who brandished a pistol. This was not a shootout, if you will, this was one person who decided to pull a gun based on an altercation occurring with another man, and then he fired multiple shots,” Aaron said.
There was a panic inside the restaurant as customers tried to escape, Police Commander Anthony McClain said.
“Some people did try to resist the gunman,” McClain said. “It was just mass chaos.”
Investigators were interviewing victims at local hospitals to determine exactly what happened, Aaron said.
“It may have been something as simple as one person invading another person’s space,” he said.