Authorities didn’t immediately release the gunman’s name. They initially said they believed there were “a couple” or a “small number” of hostages.
One of the restaurant’s owners, John Aquino, told WCSC-TV that a dishwasher who had been fired came back to the restaurant and shot a chef to get revenge. Holy City Hospitality, the restaurant’s parent company, did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.
The restaurant was packed with a lunchtime crowd and the first officers to arrive were able to get the man who was shot and a number of diners out safely, interim Charleston Police Chief Jerome Taylor said.
The site is a few blocks away from Emanuel AME church, where nine black members of a church were gunned down by a white man during a June 2015 Bible study. Dylann Roof was sentenced to death in the case.
It is also just several blocks from where more than 100 cruise ships dock in Charleston each year.
King Street remained closed for a block on either side of the restaurant Thursday evening as police remained at the shooting scene.
Steven Knotts, who tends bar at another restaurant owned by Holy City Hospitality, said he spent much of Thursday with other service industry workers. They shared a sense of collective grief and solemn solidarity.
“It doesn’t make me scared,” Knotts said of the shooting. “That could happen anywhere, anytime. You want to be more careful. But what are you going to do?”
Article Appeared @http://abc7chicago.com/fired-dishwasher-shoots-chef;-takes-hostages-in-charleston/2337973/