FLORISSANT, Mo. – One person was killed and another was injured in a shooting inside the Show-Me's restaurant and bar in Florissant Wednesday afternoon.
Florissant Police Chief Timothy J. Lowery said the shooting happened just after 4 p.m. inside the restaurant near the intersection of North New Florissant and Lindbergh. When they arrived, they took the suspect into custody and began treating the shooting victims.
One victim — identified Thursday as 43-year-old Scott A. Beary — was pronounced dead on the scene. The other was taken to the hospital for treatment. He has since been released.
Police said the three men involved in the shooting were seated near each other inside the bar when they got into an argument. That argument escalated into a physical fight before the two men were shot.
After the shooting, other patrons were able to take the gun from the suspect and keep him in the bar until police could arrive.
A witness who was inside the bar at the time told 5 On Your Side exclusively that the shooting stemmed from an argument about a dog.
Another customer said “he had a dog that weighed 290 pounds,” and two men started debating about “how a dog could be that big,” Carl Leavy said.
He says the conversation escalated and turned ugly, so one of the two men involved in the argument got up to leave with his friend, telling the other man, “no hard feelings man, we're just talking, just playing,” Leavy said.
As the man and his friend were walking out, the other man called him a name, so he turned around. That’s when words turned physical, and Leavy heard a sound he didn’t recognize at first.
“You just heard boom, boom, boom, boom," he said.
The guy who was just trying to leave had been shot in the chest at point-blank range.
"Someone said, ‘Does he have a pulse?’, and I checked, and he did have a pulse, but I've never felt anything like it. It was erratic,” he said.
The victim didn’t make it. As his friend was trying to save him, he realized he’d been hit, too.
“He didn't even know, he was so worried about helping out his buddy,” Leavy said.
The bar’s manager was able to convince the suspect to drop his gun, and the suspect sat silently in a chair until police arrived, Leavy said.
One life lost and at least two others changed forever, “over a dog,” Leavy said.
A GoFundMe page has been started to help Beary's family
