Kingsland Victims Being Remembered For Heroic Efforts

RISON - Callie Weems and Roy Sturgis, both of Kingsland, are being remembered for their heroic actions during last Friday's deadly mass shooting at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce.Weems, 23, and Sturgis, 50, were two of the four fatalities that resulted from the shooting.Col. Mike Hagar, Arkansas Secretary of Public Safety and director of Arkansas State Police, praised Weems during a press conference on Sunday. He said Weems' unselfish actions to provide medical care to a gunshot victim inside the Mad Butcher in Fordyce put her in harms way."During the incident, we observed the very best and the very worst of humanity," Hagar said. "As an example, instead of fleeing from the obvious danger, Callie Weems began using her training as a nurse to render aide to a gunshot victim, and unfortunately, became a victim herself as a result of her selfless actions."She was shot while rendering aid to another gunshot victim," he later added. "Instead of fleeing the store, she stopped to render aid in one of the most selfless acts I've ever seen." Weems, 23, a 2019 honor graduate of Rison High School, is the daughter of Helen Browning and Bruce Grice of New Edinburg, and Tommy Weems. Helen Browning is a member of the Cleveland County School Board."Callie was very selfless. She put others before her own needs," said Browning, her mother. "She never met a stranger." She also pointed out that Callie was a third generation nurse, following in her footsteps as well as that of her grandmother, Charolene Crawford Browning."(The gunman) took a very special person out of this world," her father, Tommy Weems, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in an interview."She died doing what she always does: helping," he added.Callie Weems leaves behind a 10-month-old daughter named Ivy.After graduating from Rison in 2019, Weems pursued a nursing degree from Southern Arkansas University Tech at East Camden, making the dean's lis...