- Three King Soopers workers were killed in a
shooting at the grocery store inBoulder , Colorado. - An
Instacart shopper also died in the shooting on Monday, which killed 10 people. - The shooting serves as a stark reminder of the risks that retail workers face on the job.
Three King Soopers grocery store workers and an Instacart worker were among the 10 people killed in a shooting in Boulder, Colorado on Monday.
Police released the victims' names on Tuesday morning. Among them are three people who worked at the store: Denny Stong, 20, Rikki Olds, 25, and Teri Leiker, 51.
Leiker had worked at King Soopers for roughly 30 years, with her friend Lexi Knutson telling Reuters that Leiker loved working at the grocery store.
"She loved going to work and enjoyed everything about being there," Knutson told Reuters. "Her boyfriend and her had been good friends and began dating in the fall of 2019. He was working yesterday too. He is alive."
Olds was a front-end manager at King Soopers, The Denver Post reports. Stong's profile picture on Facebook was framed with the words: "I can't stay home, I'm a Grocery Store Worker."
-Marisa Iati (@marisa_iati) March 23, 2021
A representative for
"The entire Kroger family offers our thoughts, prayers and support to our associates, customers, and the first responders who so bravely responded to this tragic situation," the statement continued. "We will continue to cooperate with local law enforcement and our store will remain closed during the police investigation."
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Lynn Murray, 62, was shot while visiting the King Soopers as an Instacart shopper. Her husband, John Mackenzie, told The New York Times she had enjoyed working for Instacart after retiring from her career as a photo director.
"She was an amazing woman, probably the kindest person I've ever known," Mackenzie told The Times. "Our lives are ruined, our tomorrows are forever filled with a sorrow that is unimaginable."
"Violence of any kind has no place in our society," Instacart founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta said in a social media post on Tuesday. "Our teams are working with law enforcement and the King Soopers team to assist in any way we can. We've reached out to the shopper's family to offer our support & resources during this unimaginably difficult time."
Mehta added: "For those members of our community who were shopping in the Boulder area, we're also ensuring they're able to take the time they need to grieve and recover from yesterday's tragic events."
-Instacart (@Instacart) March 23, 2021
The shooting serves as a stark reminder of the risks that retail workers face on the job.
"For the last year our members and other associates have fought an invisible enemy, COVID-19, but today several innocent souls were killed by an evil human," Kim Cordova, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, the union that represents employees at the King Soopers store, said in a statement.