Gainesville police charged Kamari Tilmuth with felony murder in the Walmart parking-lot shooting that killed James McDaniel.

Four aggravated-assault counts, on a shooting police describe as groups firing across a parking lot, are a claim that more people were in the line of fire than the one man who died. Felony murder is how Georgia charges a death during a felony. It does not, by itself, say the accused meant to kill James McDaniel. Police say he was on the far side of the lot and was not in the fight. They have not said what the argument was about, whether the search warrant produced a gun, or where that warrant was served.

Kamari Nehemiah Tilmuth, 18, of Gainesville, Georgia, was arrested early Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, and charged with felony murder in the shooting death of James Edward McDaniel, 11Alive and FOX 5 Atlanta reported. The Hall County SWAT team took him into custody while executing a search warrant, those outlets reported, citing the Gainesville Police Department. He is also charged with four counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Police say a 17-year-old is still being sought on the same charges and have warned people not to approach that person.

Gainesville police said officers were called around 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, to the Walmart at 400 Shallowford Road NW after shots were fired in the parking lot, FOX 5 Atlanta reported that night and the next morning. McDaniel, 81, of Lula, was shot and died Thursday morning at Northeast Georgia Medical Center, the station reported. Capt. Kevin Holbrook told FOX 5 that McDaniel was leaving the store on a mobility scooter, heading toward his car, when people began shooting across a lot full of shoppers, and that he was not part of the dispute. The Sunday arrest accounts from 11Alive and FOX 5 said he was at the opposite end of the parking lot from the confrontation. His son, Ted McDaniel, told FOX 5 that his father was a Navy senior chief during the Vietnam War, worked for the Postal Service, and is survived by a wife and four children.

Investigators said two groups of males argued inside the store and that the confrontation moved into the parking lot, 11Alive and FOX 5 reported Sunday. Police say Tilmuth and the 17-year-old opened fire on a group of males, and that McDaniel, on the opposite end of the lot, was struck and killed. They have not said what started the argument. FOX 5 reported that police had not confirmed where the search warrant was served or whether officers recovered a firearm. 11Alive reported that Gainesville police credited the Hall County Sheriff's Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, and the Hall County District Attorney's Office. The department asked anyone with information to call its tip line at 770-533-5873. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.