A corner store clerk in Memphis, Tennessee, shot a black teenager to death last week for shoplifting beer from the store, according to police.
Anwar Ghazali, a 28-year-old employee at Top Stop Shop, was charged Saturday with the first-degree murder of 17-year-old Dorian Harris, local media outlets reported.
Dorian walked into the store around 10:20 p.m. on Thursday, swiped “at least one beer,” and left, according to an arrest warrant for Ghazali obtained by local CBS affiliate WREG. Police say the clerk “drew his weapon and ran after” the teen, firing several shots at him as he was walking away.
Ghazali returned to the store and told a witness, “I think I shot him,” according to the affidavit. He never called the police to report the shooting.
Two days later, police discovered Dorian’s body a few yards away from Top Stop Shop. He had suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg, according to the affidavit. Ghazali was taken into custody, where police interviewed him and he “admitted to firing several shots.”
Dorian had stopped at the store Thursday on his way to his cousin’s house, his grandmother Effie Fitch told WMC Action News 5. She said she had heard about a shooting that night and prayed her grandson wasn’t the victim.
“It shouldn’t have happened like that,” Fitch told WMC Action News 5. “He was a child and that was an adult. ... If he had said something, Dorian’s life could’ve been saved. You don’t shoot nobody Thursday and here it is Saturday, and you ain’t said nothing about it.”
A spokeswoman for the Memphis Police Department declined to comment.