UPDATE 1/28:
Main Event released a statement on Tuesday regarding the incident.
“We are aware and deeply saddened by the incident at Main Event, Memphis. The safety of our customers is our number one priority. We are working closely with the Memphis PD and it would be inappropriate to comment further on this ongoing investigation.”
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — There are more concerns about security at Main Event after a double shooting overnight.
A sign that something wasn’t quite right greeted customers walking into the front door at Main Event Saturday.
Like Alisha Albright who said she got off work and noticed several frantic text messages this morning, including one alerting her there was shooting at the business that night.
“And so I’m just getting off work and I said, let me go up here and see what’s going on,” Albright said.
Albright has a party scheduled for Saturday afternoon at Main Event for her daughter’s 13th birthday.
“I was like, ‘A shooting at Main Event?’ And I said oh my goodness,” Albright said.
On Saturday morning, WREG reported on a shooting that occurred just after midnight at Main Event.
A male victim is now in critical condition and a woman is in non-critical condition after getting shot in the leg.
“I’m up here and I see you and I see this letter on a door saying to unknown circumstances, we gone open at 10,” Albright said. “And I see all this debris and stuff like this is an unsafe scene.”
Outside, that debris Albright referenced, bottles and car parts litter the parking lot that filled up quickly.
WREG cameras captured families arriving with balloons and party supplies as Main Event is open for business, despite the gunfire that erupted overnight.
Memphis Police say they responded to the entertainment center just after midnight where they found a man who’d been shot at the VR game.
“They started fighting, they started shooting, it was close contact and then the shots rang,” one witness said.
WREG spoke to an eyewitness forced to run for her life as the gunfire erupted.
“My group and I, thankfully we thought quick and we ran into the manager’s office and we all hid,” she said.
The witness claims she hid until a police officer came into the room and told the group to head out of a back door only to be directed by another officer to stay inside.
“They made us wait in the middle of the game with the man who was now in critical condition,” she said. “We’re watching everything that’s happening to him.”
A scary and traumatic sight.
“They had him sitting up and laying up against the game trying to get him to stay conscious,” she said. “There was no pressure applied, no one made a tourniquet. There was like no one, even the cops who went through all this training, no one knew what to do.”
“This is not safe and this is not the first time this happened,” Albright said.
The double shooting that happened inside of Main Event is just one of the latest incidents to raise concerns about security.
A former security guard at Main Event, Richard Lewis, is charged with first-degree murder.
He’s accused of killing a fellow security guard, James Redmon, allegedly after a dispute over the metal detector.
“I know exactly how the guns got inside, because there was no thorough checking,” the witness said.”
The woman WREG spoke with said her party walked through without being wanded until a female officer eventually had them turn around and check their bags.
“The officers were looking on their phones, there was two on both sides and they were just looking on their phones and they realized two people slipped away,” she said.
She also said it was easy for the suspects to slip out of the very same front door.
“They ran out within the crowd,” she said.
MPD says they found shell casings inside and rounds outside, and reviewed surveillance video, but the shooting may not have been captured due to what police called a blind spot for the cameras.
As the two victims recover from the shooting, the party goes on for customers at Main Event Saturday afternoon, which didn’t seem right to the people WREG spoke with.
“Nobody reached out to me but you got a letter on the door,” Albright said. “But you took my money with no problem.”
“They have no concern for the situation at hand, to be open today,” the witness said.
WREG did get the chance to speak with one of the managers who was on duty when all of the chaos unfolded.
He said they’ve been in touch with one of the victims and was grateful that no team members were hurt.
As far as why decided not to reach out to customers, he said it was not “their policy” but if people do want refunds, they’ll be “happy of course to provide them.”
He also said they’re of course cooperating with the Memphis Police Department.
Albright says Main Event staffers told her there would be plenty of security on hand today. We also reached out to the corporate office for comment and we’re waiting to hear back.
