After third grocery mass shooting since 2021, there are tools grocers can use for prevention

While investigators were still trying to figure out the motive behind an Arkansas grocery store shooting, a fourth victim died over the weekend, reports the Associated Press.

Travis Eugene opened fire at a Mad Butcher store in Fordyce, Ark., on Friday morning. He started in the parking lot before moving into the store. A total of 15 people were shot, including Posey and two law enforcement officers.

It is the third mass shooting at a U.S. grocery store in three years. A white supremacist gunned down 10 people at a Tops Friendly Markets grocery store in Buffalo in 2022, and in 2021, 10 were killed at a King Soopers in Boulder, Colo.

In August of 2023, a man walked into a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Fla., and fatally shot four people, including himself.

Nearly two years after the Tops shooting, the grocery chain announced it was partnering with local police to install a police substation at a Tops store in nearby Niagara Falls.

The retailer said the goal was to increase police visibility and outreach at the store.

There is also an online training program for workplace violence prevention and preparedness specifically geared toward grocery store employees.

FMI – the Food Industry Association, in partnership with The Power of Preparedness, offers members online training for workplace violence prevention, verbal de-escalation, and active assailant preparedness.

The training aims to give FMI members and their workers the knowledge and confidence to identify, prevent, and minimize potentially violent conflicts.