By Mark Price
The Charlotte Observer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Three Nashville police officers were forced to dodge gunfire and exploding bottles after a dramatic shootout with a homicide suspect erupted in a liquor store.
No officers were hurt, but the 40-year-old gunman suffered “wounds to his extremities,” according to a press release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. His name has not been released.
It happened around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, June 2, at the Frugal MacDoogal liquor store on Division Street in Nashville, officials said.
“Officers arrived on the scene less than three minutes after the man fought with the store’s security guard, who was fatally shot with his own pistol during the parking lot fight,” police said. “The man then retreated back into the store with the security guard’s gun.”
Body camera video from officers Trevor Taylor, Blake Curry and Steven Luckey shows they explored the empty store aisle by aisle, eventually finding the suspect by a row of coolers in the back of the store.
The officers are heard repeatedly yelling for the suspect to drop his weapon and show his hands.
“The gunman fired shots at the officers, resulting in Officer Luckey and then Officer Curry returning the fire,” police said in the release.
Nearly two dozen gunshots are heard as officers duck behind boxes of beverages.
The three officers then close in on the man and find him lying face down on a floor littered with broken bottles and spilled beverages. Video shows the suspect appeared to be reaching for a gun just beyond his grasp, but then stopped.
“Do not reach for this gun,” one officer yells as he kneels to handcuff the man.
The suspect was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition, police said.
The security guard who died has been identified as 59-year-old Robert Scott Meek, police said.
Investigators said Meek “reportedly encountered the man after an attempted shoplifting in the liquor store.”
“The two went into the parking lot. The man reportedly went to an adjoining property before coming back to the liquor store parking lot and engaging in a fight with Meek,” police said.
All three officers “are on routine administrative assignment, as is policy for officers involved in a shooting incident,” officials said.
“The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, at the request of the District Attorney, is leading both the investigation into the fatal shooting of Meek and the investigation into the wounding of the gunman,” police said.
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