SOUTHAVEN, Miss. – The man shot by a Southaven police officer at a gas station Thursday afternoon was suspected of shooting at a 16-year-old girl, WREG has learned.
The suspect was shot in the arm at the Raceway on the 500 block of Stateline Road and taken to Regional Medical Center, DeSoto County District Attorney John Champion said. Three other men were detained.
Champion said the shooting happened during an undercover sting operation to nab the men who had opened fire on someone during an attempted robbery the previous night.
Carrie Jones said her 16-year-old daughter had arranged to buy a cell phone through an app called LetGo and met the seller around 10 p.m. Wednesday at her Yorktown Drive home. But instead of one man, four men arrived and immediately tried to rob her daughter, Jones said.
“They pulled the gun on her and said ‘Give me all your stuff,’” Jones said.
As soon as she caught sight of the gun, Jones said her daughter ran inside and the suspects started shooting at her. In her haste, she tripped and fell.
“I guess that’s when they stopped shooting. I guess they thought they hit her,” Jones said.
Her daughter was fine except for a few scrapes, but police managed to track down one of the men through his profile on LetGo, Champion said.
They set up a meeting at the Raceway posing as customers, but at some point, one of the men rammed two police cars, Champion said. When he reached for a gun, Champion said an officer shot him.
“If the officer was protecting himself, then, you know, you got to do what you got to do,” said gas station customer Michelle Collins.
“It’s sad. It’s just really sad that the world has come to that,” said Kathy Smith.
Jones is happy to hear the men who allegedly shot her daughter are now off the streets, but has a warning for anyone thinking about meeting people they met online.
“If you’re gonna buy something, do it in a public place. Do it, you know, maybe at a police station,” Jones said.
Authorities have not yet released the names of the suspects.
Champion said the car they were in had been carjacked in Memphis Wednesday night and that they recovered two weapons from it.
