Carthage Nursing Home Shooting - Shooting

Shooting

Robert Stewart, dressed in a bib overall, arrived at the parking lot of the nursing home just before 10:00 am, where he shot several times at his wife's car, shattering its windows. He also shot at Michael Lee Cotten, a visitor, in his car, when he pulled into the parking lot, and hit him in the left shoulder. Cotten, who later stated that Stewart was "very calm, very deliberate" when he fired at him, managed to run into the building and warn the people inside of the gunman. Police received the first emergency calls at approximately 10:00 am and the only police officer on duty, Justin Garner, was dispatched to the scene about one minute later.

Leaving a camouflage Remington 597 .22 caliber rifle atop a Jeep Cherokee, Stewart entered the nursing home armed with a .357-caliber handgun, a .22 Magnum semi-automatic pistol and a 12-gauge Winchester 1300 shotgun and went down the hall apparently searching for his wife, Wanda Neal, who had been reassigned to the Alzheimer unit that morning. Upon realizing that his wife wasn't where she usually worked he headed to the area for Alzheimer's patients which was secured by passcode-protected doors. As he walked through the hallways of the nursing home, Stewart killed seven residents, two of them in their wheelchairs, while the staff tried to bring the patients to safety. One nurse, Jerry Avant, was also shot and killed when he tried to stop the gunman.

Stewart was finally stopped in the hallway at about 10:05 am by Officer Ed Garner, who had been visiting his mother Tessie. After refusing several orders to drop his weapon, Stewart lowered his shotgun and fired a shot at Garner, hitting him in the leg and foot. Garner returned fire and hit the gunman in the shoulder, incapacitating him. When the shooting was over, six people were dead and five others, including Stewart, were taken to a nearby hospital. Two of the wounded died the same day. In the hospital Stewart told a nurse that he had taken six “nerve pills” and did not remember anything about the shooting.

Read more about this topic:  Carthage Nursing Home Shooting

Famous quotes containing the word shooting:

    Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    One ... aspect of the case for World War II is that while it was still a shooting affair it taught us survivors a great deal about daily living which is valuable to us now that it is, ethically at least, a question of cold weapons and hot words.
    M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)

    Writing or printing is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader’s mind, or miss it;Mbut talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can’t help hitting it.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)