A patient is accused of shooting and killing an orthopedic surgeon on Tuesday inside an exam room, sending police on a frantic search for the perpetrator immediately after the crime and the clinic’s personnel inconsolable.

Dr. Benjamin Mauck was killed on Tuesday, according to the Collierville Police Department, and Larry Pickens, 29, has been charged with the crime.

The suspect was apprehended five minutes later, according to the agency, after another patient recorded officers looking for him outside the Collierville, Tennessee, office of Campbell Clinic Orthopedics.

Pickens was detained and accused with first-degree murder and aggravated assault, according to a statement from the police released early on Wednesday. Pickens, 29, was granted a $1.2 million bond by Collierville Municipal Judge Lee Ann Pafford Dobson, according to the police.

Pickens “had a firearm in his possession” when police encountered him outside the clinic, according to Police Chief Dale Lane, who added that he was “taken into custody without incident.”
No additional people were hurt, Lane informed the media.

The police chief stated, “This appears to be a one-on-one interaction.”

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Pickens had spent “several hours” in the clinic prior to the shooting, according to Lane, who also stated that the killing “appears to be” targeted. “It’s awful. It’s terrible. It’s awful,” he declared.

Following his graduation from the University of Tennessee-Memphis medical school in 2006, Dr. Mauck began working at Campbell Clinic in 2012. Many of his clients and employees held him in the highest regard; last week, they paid tribute to him on social media with posts on his expertise in elbow, hand, and wrist surgeries.

Less than a week ago, Mauck was featured in Memphis Magazine for one of its “top doctors” profiles where, according to Fox 13 News, he said he wanted to be a doctor since he was a teenager growing up in Savannah, Tenn.

According to a statement received by Fox 13, Mauck was a “highly respected and beloved” surgeon in the area. Campbell Clinic said it will close all of its locations on Wednesday while staff members grieved for him.

The clinic continued, “We are surprised and heartbroken to report the incident tragically resulted in the loss of one of our highly esteemed and cherished physicians, Dr. Ben Mauck. Please remember his family in prayer, we beg you.