NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Employees at a Waffle House where four people were killed in a weekend shooting rampage wore orange ribbons, hugged each other and wept as the restaurant re-opened. And a steady stream of customers came in to the Nashville restaurant Wednesday to show support.
The parents of Joe Perez, a 20-year-old victim of the Sunday morning shooting, signed four white crosses outside, one of them bearing their son’s name and picture.
Company officials said they will donate a month of the restaurant’s sales to help the wounded survivors and the families of the slain.
Perez’s parents, who came from Texas to mourn him, said they did not want to speak. A woman who was working during the attack, her face still bearing scrapes, said she couldn’t speak. She knelt before the four white crosses erected to commemorate the victims.
The dead included Perez and Taurean Sanderlin, 29, who worked at the Waffle House. Sanderlin had been on a cigarette break in the parking lot when the killer stepped out of his truck brandishing an AR-15 rifle and opened fire. The gunman then stormed the restaurant.