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Background: Memphis Police Department officers respond after a fatal shooting at a Wendy”s restaurant in the city (WREG/YouTube). Inset: Darelle Bowers (Shelby County Sheriff’s Office).
A Wendy’s manager in Tennessee is accused of shooting and killing another man after a fight between them broke out at one of the fast-food chain’s locations in Memphis.
Darelle Bowers, 37, has been charged with first-degree murder, according to court records. He is in the Shelby County Jail under no bond.
The fight is said to have broken out on Monday because an employee wanted to leave her shift early. The Memphis Police Department said it received a call from the restaurant at 7928 Winchester Road at approximately 5:20 p.m. about a disturbance.
According to local NBC affiliate WMC, it was Bowers who made the call.
As officers were on their way to the scene, they received additional reports that a shot had been fired and a person was hit, the outlet reported. Police arrived and reportedly found Stephen Shepard in the Wendy’s parking lot with a gunshot wound to his stomach. He was hospitalized and later died.
Court documents allege Bowers is the one who shot Shepard – with a bail screening form for the suspect claiming he “shot and killed [the] victim while the two were fighting.”
The employee who wanted to leave her shift early called Shepard to pick her up “after Bowers threatened to slap her,” she told police, per Fox affiliate WHBQ. Sometime after Shepard arrived, the two men started fighting, and video posted to social media showed parts of the violent confrontation.
Shepard can be seen throwing a punch at a man said to be Bowers before Bowers, clad in the classic red shirt worn by Wendy’s workers, appears to hold his two clasped-together hands in front of him shortly before a gunshot is heard. The man in red then walks over the gunshot victim and appears to slap him in the face. Shepard was reportedly unarmed.
“The person that got shot, he ended up swinging on the manager of the store, and the manager pulled out his gun and shot him. Well, he already had his gun in his hand,” a witness told WHBQ.
“When he first got shot, he was screaming,” the witness added of the shooting victim. “But after a minute, he just stopped moving.”
The victim and suspect knew each other, police said, according to CBS affiliate WREG. Bowers is said to have not resisted arrest and admitted to being the one who fired a shot.
Bowers is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Wendy’s of Tennessee told McClatchy News its restaurants “follow strict safety protocols, including de-escalation training, and we have a zero-tolerance policy on weapons.”