Alleged Texas shooter knocked murder victim’s gun from his hands: police

By Lisa Maria Garza

DALLAS (Reuters) – An Army private accused of shooting his wife during an argument in a Dallas-area parking lot and killing a man who tried to intervene knocked the man’s gun from his hands, police said on Tuesday.

Ricci Bradden, 22, a U.S. Army private stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, has been charged with murder in the Monday killing of Anthony Antell, 35, a gym owner who had served in the U.S. Marine Corps. The incident took place outside a Walgreens drugstore in Arlington, west of Dallas.

Bradden said he knocked Antell’s gun from his hand and then shot him, a police report said.

Before that, Bradden is suspected of shooting his wife, 22-year-old Quinisha Johnson, a Walgreens employee, in the store’s parking lot. She was struck in the ankle and went inside the store to call for help, the report said.

Antell, a father of three and local CrossFit gym owner, witnessed the shooting and retrieved his hand gun from his vehicle before confronting the suspect.

He told the suspect to drop his weapon and was shot, the report said. Antell died at the scene and his wife witnessed the killing, it said.

Bradden drove away then confessed to his Army supervisors, and they persuaded him to surrender to authorities in another county, investigators said.

(Reporting by Lisa Maria Garza; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)