Police in Memphis, Tenn., said a man who drove around the city shooting people during an hours-long spree that forced panicked people to take cover Wednesday has been arrested.
Memphis police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said 19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly was arrested after 9 p.m. in the Whitehaven neighborhood.
That was about two hours after police sent out an alert saying a man driving a light blue Infiniti was responsible for several shootings in the city. Police said he then switched vehicles to a gray Toyota SUV.
It was not immediately known if anyone had been killed. Police said they recorded his actions on Facebook.
A photo of a 19-year-old suspect wanted in connection with multiple shootings in Memphis, Tenn., on September 7, 2022. (Memphis Police Department)
The University of Memphis sent a message to students saying a shooting had been reported near campus. Rhodes College, which is about 4 miles away from the university, advised students on and off campus to shelter in place.
The area where Kelly was arrested was about 11 miles from the University of Memphis and about 12 miles from Rhodes College. Police in Southaven, Mississippi, located south of Memphis across the state line, said Kelly stole a car from a gas station there before he was arrested in Memphis.
“If you don’t have to go out, stay indoors until this is resolved,” Memphis police said on Twitter, before the arrest.
Rudolph told WMC-TV that police do not know a motive for the shooting.
Anyone with information was asked to call 911.
Memphis has recently been rocked by several high-profile murders in recent weeks, including the shooting of a pastor during a daytime carjacking in his driveway, the shooting of an activist during an argument over money, and the murder of a woman who was kidnapped while on a pre-dawn run.
Court records show that in February 2020, Kelly, then 17, was charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, using a firearm to commit a dangerous felony and putting reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. The circumstances of the case were not immediately known.
He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to three years in prison, records show. It was not immediately known how much of the sentence he served.