Afternoon shooting in Nashville restaurant kills 1 man and injures 5 others

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A man was killed and five other people were injured Sunday afternoon during a shooting at a restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, police said.

The shooting around 3 p.m. in Nashville’s Salemtown neighborhood began within minutes of the male suspect arriving at the restaurant with a woman, police said.

The suspect and the deceased man got into an argument that “escalated significantly within moments,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said at a news conference at the scene.

Police later identified the deceased man as 33-year-old Allen Beachem. The conditions of the other victims were not immediately released.

Police identified a 46-year-old suspect and the car fled the scene with footage from security video from the restaurant. As the search for the suspect continued Sunday, police posted photos of the shooting on social media, including an image of a man pointing a gun.

“The shooter was the only one brandishing a gun. This was not a gunfight, if you will, this was one person who decided to pull a gun based on an altercation with another man and then fired multiple shots,” Aaron said.

Panic ensued at the restaurant as customers tried to escape, police Capt. Anthony McClain said.

“Some people tried to resist the shooter,” McClain said. “It was just massive chaos.”

Investigators were at local hospitals Sunday interviewing victims to determine exactly what happened, Aaron said.

“It could have been something as simple as one person invading someone else’s space,” he said.