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| Scene of shooting in Anchorage Walmart |
(updated, see below)
45-year-old Daniel Pirtle, a double-amputee in a motorized cart, was shopping in a Walmart in Anchorage, Alaska. He had a service dog, but the dog was not on a leash. When 33-year-old manager Jason Mahi asked Pirtle to leash his dog or leave, Pirtle became angry and shot Mahi once in the abdomen.
According to the Anchorage Scanner, the shooting occurred in the gun section of the store.
Pirtle was arrested just outside the store by an off-duty police officer and taken into custody. Mahi survived so far and underwent surgery.
The store never closed, and wasn't evacuated.
From an article:
According to police, the man entered the store in a motorized cart at about 3 p.m. and went the sporting goods section. Mahi asked him to the put the dog on a leash or leave.
The man then pulled out a gun and shot the manager in the abdomen, police said.
Officers removed the man's prosthetic legs and put him in the back of a patrol car, the Anchorage Daily News reported. They held his dog in the back of another police cruiser. An officer said she was driving the dog home.
(a related article)
Walmart. Save money. Die faster.
UPDATE (3/20/13): The victim, Mahi, remains unconscious in the hospital. Pirtle meanwhile has been charged and is choosing to represent himself. He had two pistols on him at that time of the shooting. From an article:
He was charged with first-degree assault and weapons misconduct, and on Tuesday declined a public defender, telling the judge that he preferred to represent himself. "I know how to do that," he said at the pre-indictment hearing. ....
Pirtle had two pistols with him at the store, and later admitted to detectives that he had shot Mahi, according to an information report filed by the local district attorney.
Mahi's brother, Brandon Mahi, said the victim remained unconscious on Tuesday. "We're just praying every day," Brandon Mahi said after Pirtle's brief court appearance.
He said the family is upset that Walmart continued to do business after the shooting. "They just kept running like nothing even happened," he said. ....
If Mahi dies, murder charges will be added, said Anita Shell, a spokeswoman for the Anchorage Police Department.UPDATE (3/22/13): A recent article revealed additional details about the shooter. According to the article:
Pirtle liked to travel with the 5-month-old dog Wookie -- and the guns -- wherever he went, said Susi Griffith, a roommate and longtime friend. He showed indications of instability, she said, but had seemed to be adjusting to a pair of surgeries to remove his legs because of diabetes over the past two to three years. ....
Over the past two weeks, Pirtle had become irritable, Griffith said. "He has mental instabilities. He had medication that I believe he had quit taking."UPDATE (3/28/13): Here is a video from a news outlet which has a digital reenactment of the shooting.
UPDATE (3/31/13): Here is information on the off-duty police officer, Sgt. Mike Couturier, who detained Pirtle until he could be arrested.
UPDATE (11/16/13): The shooter, Daniel Pirtle, plead guilty. The victim, Brandon Mahi, has apparently recovered and returned to work. From an article:
Daniel Pirtle, 46, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of first-degree assault for the shooting that put Jason Mahi, 33, in a hospital for weeks. Pirtle was originally charged with attempted murder and misconduct involving a weapon.
An off-duty police sergeant who was shopping helped corral Pirtle, who was motoring out the store's front door as other officers arrived. Walmart employees made no announcement about the shooting, and shoppers in other parts of the store were unaware of what had happened, witnesses said.UPDATE (3/28/14): The shooter, Pirtle, was sentenced. From an article:
Before handing down a sentence of 11 years with two suspended and two years of probation, Judge Michael Spaan told Pirtle he was lucky someone else carrying a gun did not shoot him.
"You had people reaching for shotguns. You had police officers asking for guns," Spaan said. "This was horrible, but it could have been a lot worse. It was a very crowded store, a very public place."
"It was Dodge City," the judge said. "For a rage like this to break out for somebody asking you to put your dog on a leash in a store is unacceptable."
The victim, Jason Mahi, who was shot in the stomach, remains handicapped from the shooting:
"It's been a rough road," said Mahi, who spent three months in a hospital and racked up more than $1 million in medical bills. ....
Mahi now walks with a cane and suffered damage to his hip, intestines, kidney and bladder, he said. But he said the trouble and worry caused to his family has been the worst part..
