Dramatic footage has captured the police response to the “targeted shooting” of a Tennessee surgeon by a patient inside an exam room.
Larry Pickens, 29, has been charged with first-degree murder of Benjamin Mauck at Campbell Clinic Orthopedics in Collierville on Tuesday and is due to be arraigned on Thursday morning.
Police say the suspect lay in wait for several hours at the health centre before shooting Mauck with a handgun in front of other patients and staff.
Footage obtained by WREG shows armed police officers going door-to-door at the clinic minutes after the shooting.
“He fled, he fled, he’s not in there,” a witness can be heard telling the officers. “He had a gun and he came running out.”
As police swarm the clinic, patients keep their arms raised and continue to provide the officers with information.
Dr Benjamin Mauck was fatally shot by a patient in an exam room at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis— (Campbell Clinic)
Suddenly, the armed officers run out of the front doors of the clinic as sirens blare.
The suspect was arrested outside the clinic about five minutes after the shooting without incident, Collierville Police Chief Mike Lane said.
Mr Pickens, who had no criminal record prior to Tuesday’s shooting, was being held on $1.2m bail ahead of his first appearance at the Collierville Town Court on Thursday.
Larry Pickens, 29, has been charged with the first-degree murder of Collierville surgeon Benjamin Mauck— (Collierville Police Department )
Mauck, a 43-year-old specialist hand, wrist and elbow surgeon, was remembered by colleagues, patients and friends as a “beloved colleague and a dedicated physician”.
The married father of two had worked at Campbell Clinic Orthopedics since 2012. He was also director of the Congenital Hand Deformities Clinic Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, where he told Memphis magazine operated on children with congenital defects.
He was named on Memphis magazine’s 2023 Top Doctors List just last week.
Cancer survivor Josh Jacobs told WREG he credited Mauck with saving his life. Mr Jacobs was referred to the surgeon after he noticed a bump on his hand, which was later diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer.
He told the news site that Mauck performed the operation to remove one of his fingers.
Tennessee Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari said in a statement that a patient had been threatening to harm employees at the clinic for the past week.
Ms Akbari called for stricter gun regulations in the wake of the shooting.
