A 55-year-old man who is accused of shooting and killing a woman in the Silver Springs Wal-Mart on Saturday afternoon is in custody with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Ocala Police officials said the man is alive and was transported to a local hospital for treatment.
Police say the early afternoon incident started as a domestic argument between a man and a 30-year-old woman in the Silver Springs Boulevard store’s garden center area. Once inside the store, the woman screamed for help, police say.
Walmart personnel called 911 and attempted to intervene. But the man shot the woman and fled the scene.
Police then launched an active manhunt for the suspect. And they are still working to identify the woman’s next of kin. She was the only shooting victim in the incident, police say.
Units from Ocala Fire Rescue also were dispatched to the incident. Paramedics from that department, as well as Marion County Fire Rescue, provided treatment to the wounded woman, who was transported to Ocala Regional Medical Center and pronounced dead.
Shortly after 3 p.m., Ocala Fire Rescue units were called back the store to treat several people who were suffering from distress from the active shooter incident. Two people were treated on scene and a third who was injured during the evacuation of the store was transported to a local hospital.
Many area residents weighed in on the Ocala Police Department Facebook page after the shooting. Ocala resident Pat Kaspar Tevlin said she was in the Wal-Mart Garden Center when the shooting took place. She said employees yelled that an active shooter was the store and told customers to get out of the building.
“I probably ran right past the shooter,” she wrote. “It was the scariest thing I (have) ever been involved in. Too close for comfort.”
Kimberly Pompey Wilkerson, of Ocala, said she was just leaving the Wal-Mart when the shooting happened.
“In 10 seconds people came flooding out,” she wrote. “I had gone in through the garden center to shop and return items but came out through the center doors.”
Lillian Waldron, also of Ocala, had been shopping at the store 30 minutes before the shooting.
“You never know when something horrible can happen,” she wrote. “I’m so sorry for this woman, her friends, and family.”