Kroger, the grocery giant, is donating $1 million to the survivors of a deadly shooting in one of their locations in Collierville, Tennessee, which occurred just over a week ago.
On Saturday morning, September 23, a man walked into the grocery store and opened fire. He injured 15 people, killed one, and then turned his gun upon himself.
The shooter, who police have identified as Uk Thang, 29, was hardly a random stranger. He worked in the store selling sushi as a third-party vendor for JFE Franchising. The night before the shooting, according to employees, managers had been overheard discussing firing Thang. Early Saturday morning, he’d been escorted from the store.
“His boss came and they were talking to him about what happened. They had to walk him out and he didn’t really want them to walk him out. They said they were gonna call the police. But I guess he left at that point,” said Lawanda Clark, a Kroger employee.
He came back with a gun.
Ten of those injured in his shooting were employees, and five were customers. Olivia King and Uk Thang were the only fatalities. Thang had no connection to King other than him working at the store she frequented.
A charity to help the victims with funeral and medical expenses was begun immediately by the Community Foundation of Memphis and the National Compassion Fund. The latter is a nonprofit which specializes in precisely this kind of thing–handling charitable contributions to victims of mass casualty crimes.
Kroger took the initiative to kickstart that fund with a $1 million donation, to be divided among the victims. Of the over a dozen injured, nine required hospital treatment, and six were admitted with serious but non-critical injuries.
Kroger had made no comment about Thang’s employment as of the writing of this article.
Private donations to the Collierville Survivors Fund can be made at nationalcompassion.org.
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