A Kroger cashier who tried to usher customers to safety said the gunman followed them as they ran for cover during mass shooting

• Thirteen people were shot during a mass shooting in Collierville, Tennessee, on Thursday.
• One of the victims died in the shooting at a Kroger supermarket.
• A cashier told reporters the gunman followed her through the store as she tried to usher others to safety.

A cashier who works at the Collierville, Tennessee, Kroger supermarket where a gunman opened fire on Thursday, said she tried to usher customers to safety as he followed them throughout the store.

Thirteen people were shot, and one of them was killed, during the mass shooting. The suspected shooter is also dead, likely from a self-inflicted injury, authorities said.

Brignetta Dickerson, who told reporters she has worked at the store for 32 years, told local media that she was working at the cash register when she heard gunshots.

"He started popping that gun," she told WREG-TV. "It sounded a bit like a balloon popping. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap - just like that."

Dickerson said she started yelling at customers to "Go! Go! Go!" when she heard gunshots coming from the deli area.

She told reporters that as she heard the shooter making his way down the aisles, she instinctively grabbed people in front of her and ushered them through the meat department door and beyond the break room. But the shooter followed close behind, she said.

Eventually, she said they reached a delivery receiving area with a wide opening in the back of the store.

"I looked and I said 'that's the only safe haven we've got," Dickerson told reporters. "But he followed us out back."

Dickerson said the gunman shot one of her co-workers in the head and a customer in the stomach. She worked to help her co-worker who she said was alert and able to talk to her.

"That's when the police came," she said.

Officers who responded to the scene found people hiding in freezers and had to assist an employee off the roof, Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane said during a Thursday press conference.

"I've been involved in this for 34 years and I've never seen anything like this," Lane said, calling it "the most horrific event that's happened in Collierville history."

Authorities have not yet identified the shooter and are continuing to investigate the incident.