Courtesy of Campbell Clinic and Collierville Police Division.
Tennessee cops recognized 29-year-old Larry Pickens as the person who allegedly staked out and shot doctor Benjamin Mauck lifeless in an examination room this week—an “unthinkable tragedy” that’s horrified his family members and colleagues.
Pickens now faces fees of first-degree homicide and aggravated assault. He’s accused of ready inside Mauck’s orthopedics workplace for hours earlier than finally barging into an examination room and capturing the beloved doc lifeless round 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Particulars surrounding the slaying have been restricted. Cops in Collierville, a metropolis of fifty,000 about 30 miles west of Memphis, are but to launch a suspected motive, however confirmed Pickens was receiving care from Mauck.
Chief Dale Lane stated officers responded to Mauck’s workplace in lower than 5 minutes, however they weren’t in a position to revive him. Lane stated Pickens seemingly spared different sufferers after he opened fireplace then ran outdoors the constructing—an indication that Tuesday’s slaying was focused.
“This seems to be a one-on-one interplay,” Lane stated Tuesday. “It’s unhealthy. It’s horrific. It’s horrible. Our ideas and prayers are with the household.”
Lane stated Pickens was holding a handgun when officers took him into custody outdoors Mauck’s workplace with out incident. Video from the scene confirmed officers sprinting out of the clinic with weapons drawn. Separate footage from a body-worn digital camera confirmed a person telling officers the shooter “had a gun in his hand and got here working out.”
Chatting with WREG 3, a lady fought again tears as she recalled her expertise contained in the clinic. “Somebody’s not going house to their household,” she stated. “It might have been anyone else in that clinic at present.”
Whereas cops have remained mum on a attainable motive, Memphis Senator Raumesh Akbari stated in a press release that the shooter had been threatening a clinic worker for over per week. Lane stated his division was unaware of the alleged threats.
“Tragedies like this underscore the pressing want for frequent sense—like reinstating background checks and gun licenses, and establishing new reforms like an order of safety so police can take away firearms from an individual who’s threatening others,” stated Akbari.
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Mauck, 43, was married with two children, the New York Submit reported, citing the Fb web page for Rhiannon Mauck. That web page’s profile picture seems to point out Rhiannon and Mauck smiling with two younger kids in entrance of a lake.
An outpouring of tributes emerged Tuesday after Campbell Clinic Orthopedics recognized Mauck because the slain physician. A web-based bio stated he graduated medical faculty from the College of Tennessee-Memphis and specialised in elbow, hand and wrist surgical procedure for the final six years.
“I’m saddened and in a spot of unhappiness proper now! Dr Benjamin Mauck was an unimaginable and sensible doctor,” wrote Constance Terry on Fb, including that Mauck was the one doctor to correctly diagnose and deal with her after a automotive accident in 2021.
Simply final month, Mauck was named a 2023 High Physician in Memphis by Fort Connolly, a nationwide healthcare analysis company that places sufferers in touch with physicians.
In a press release, Campbell Clinic Orthopedics stated it was closing all 9 of its clinics—scattered round West Tennessee and Mississippi—on Wednesday as colleagues, family members and sufferers proceed to mourn.
“We’re shocked and heartbroken to substantiate the incident resulted within the tragic lack of one in all our extremely revered and beloved physicians,” a spokesperson for the clinic, Irina Ollar, stated in a press release.
Mauck was additionally the top of the Congenital Hand Clinic at Le Bonheur Kids’s Hospital, the place he was a “beloved colleague and a devoted doctor,” stated Dr. Trey Eubanks, the hospital’s interim president.
“We already miss him,” Eubanks wrote in a press release. “His demise is an unthinkable tragedy, and I’m at loss at what to say. I’m so sorry to those that cherished and knew him, for many who labored alongside him daily.”
A decide set Pickens bail at $1.2 million, police posted to NextDoor on Wednesday. He’s scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.
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