MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A jury found a grocery clerk guilty of killing a 17-year-old boy who ran out of the store with a beer he didn’t pay for in Memphis, authorities said.
Anwar Ghazali was convicted of second-degree murder after a four-day trial, Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said Friday. He will be sentenced on September 23.
“This defendant took it upon himself to be the judge and jury and the executioner over a $2 beer,” prosecutor Lora Fowler said, according to CNN affiliate WMC.
The shooting happened in March 2018, after Dorian Harris walked out of the Top Stop Shop with a beer without paying, Weirich said.
Ghazali pulled out a handgun and followed him, firing several times. He didn’t call the police, but told a witness as he returned to the store, “I think I shot him.”
Harris was shot at least three times and was left to bleed out, Fowler said. His body was found two days later in a yard near the store with gunshots in the back of his thigh, Weirich said.
