Southeast Dallas Dollar General clerk killed, suspect arrested in Tennessee

DALLAS - An arrest has been made in the murder of a store clerk in Southeast Dallas last week.

Dallas Police say that 25-year-old Kemone Rudd has been charged with the murder of 31-year-old Michael Pierson.

Rudd was arrested by the US Marshals in Ripley, Tennessee on Monday more than 500 miles away from the original shooting.

He is being held in the Lauderdale County Jail and is awaiting extradition.

On Thursday, Dec. 14, Pierson was shot and killed while he worked inside the store on S. Belt Line Road.

"You have a person at work doing what they're supposed to be doing, trying to build a life for themselves and somebody shoots them for no reason," said Mitchell Pierson, Michael's brother. "No reason is good enough to take somebody's life."

Pierson's family is enduring emotions they cannot escape.

"I have to say over and over in my head, I lost my brother to gun violence, you know, and that hurts on a whole different level," said Pierson.

Michael Pierson, the oldest of three brothers, was always positive, according to his family.

"Not only did he always try to make people feel good about themselves, but he did to us too. He was very proud of his family, his brothers. He took his big brother role seriously," said Shronda Pierson, Michael's mother.

The 31-year-old was not just a brother. He was also a father to a 10-year-old son.

"My kids don't know what it feels like to not have a dad, but my grandson will feel that way, and it wasn't supposed to be like that," said Shronda.

Police say Pierson did nothing wrong when the man with a gun entered the store around 5:40 on Thursday evening.

"I don't wish this pain on anybody, especially when they were innocently at work just trying to make a living," said his mother.

Balloons blow in the wind outside the store, which is still closed.

What happened has opened a wound in the heart of the Piersons.

"There's nothing that can take this pain away. Our circle has been broken," his mother said.

"I don't know this guy, I don't even know his name, don't know what he looks like, but that night he had the power to change everybody in this room's life. My nephew's life," Mitchell Pierson said.

While the family knows that justice will come, they also know something has to change.

Change across our community and our society, where lives seemingly no longer matter.