A medical patient shot and killed his physician while they were inside an exam room in Tennessee on Tuesday, authorities said.
Dr. Benjamin Mauck was with Larry Pickens, 29, inside of a clinic in Collierville, outside of Memphis, when he was shot by Pickens with a handgun around 2:30 p.m., police said.
Pickens fled the Campbell Clinic but was taken into custody within five minutes by police. He was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and aggravated assault, police said.
“It’s horrible. Please pray for the victim and his family,” said Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane at a press conference.
Lane called the incident an isolated, targeted attack and said that police believe there was an opportunity for the gunman to harm others at the facility but he didn’t, and “we don’t know why.” A suspected motive has not been released.
A witness at the scene of the shooting told local station WREG that a patient had been threatening Mauck for the past week prior to the attack, though Lane said at Tuesday’s presser that authorities weren’t aware of any threats made prior to the shooting.
The Collierville Police Department said they have no known prior incidents with Pickens but that investigators are looking into whether any outside agencies had prior run-ins with him.
His bond was set at $1.2 million by a judge Wednesday.
Mauck was an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in elbow, hand and wrist surgery and had a glowing 4.9 rating among his patients, according to his clinic’s online biography. The clinic requested prayers and privacy for Mauck’s family in a public statement that memorialized him as a “highly respected and beloved” physician.
The shooting is just the latest targeting health care workers.
Back in May, a man opened fire inside an Atlanta medical facility’s waiting room, killing one woman and injuring four others. The 24-year-old suspect was said by his attorney to have been suffering from mental health issues at the time of the attack.
Then in 2022, a man armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun killed four people inside a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical building. Authorities said the gunman was targeting his surgeon, who was among those killed, due to ongoing back pain he was experiencing following surgery. Police said the firearms were purchased shortly before the attack.
Tennessee state Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) called for tighter gun restrictions in the wake of recent shootings in her state.
“For a decade, Republicans have been loosening Tennessee’s gun laws and making our community more dangerous. Tragedies like this underscore the urgent need for common sense — like reinstating background checks and gun licenses, and establishing new reforms like an order of protection so police can remove firearms from a person who is threatening others,” she said in a statement obtained by The Tennessee Holler.
Akbari and fellow Democrats made similar pleas back in 2021 when Collierville police responded to a mass shooting at a Kroger grocery store that left one person dead and 12 others injured.
Earlier this year, a shooting at a Christian school in Nashville left three children and three adults dead.