Charles Russell was shopping for an Instacart order inside a Publix supermarket in Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon when he saw a man with a rifle walking into a bathroom.
“I saw an AR-15,” Russell told WSB-TV, referring to a similar style of semiautomatic weapon that a gunman used to kill 10 in a Boulder, Colo., supermarket on Monday. “This kind of startled me just again with events that recently happened in the grocery store up in Colorado.”
Russell told a store manager about the gun, and an employee phoned police, who arrested Rico Marley, 22, after he exited the bathroom, the Atlanta Police Department said in a news release on Wednesday.
Officers found at least five firearms in Marley’s possession, including two long guns and three pistols, police said. They also found body armor, ammunition and a knife, according to a police photo of the weapons, WSB-TV reported.
A local reporter who looked into Marley’s background said he has a criminal record out of DeKalb County from three years ago for a simple assault charge that was dismissed on a technicality.
Marley had a weapons carry license on him Wednesday.
