‘Normal day at Cracker Barrel’ ends with shrapnel stuck forever in Charlotte man’s leg

Cedric Rush sat down at Cracker Barrel ready for his usual: meatloaf, potatoes and a basket of biscuits. He left in an ambulance — with shrapnel permanently lodged in his legs.

As Rush, 57, finished Monday night dinner in Charlotte with his 89-year-old uncle, a thud at the table next to them turned their heads.

His uncle, looked down and saw a semi-automatic pistol.

Rush looked down and saw blood.

A stray bullet tore through Cracker Barrel’s otherwise quiet dinner service April 24 at about 6 p.m., according to Rush and a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police report.

As the man at the neighboring table fumbled to pick up the gun he dropped, a bullet fired into the wall and shrapnel wedged into Rush’s calves, Rush said.

“It was just a normal day in Cracker Barrel,” he told The Charlotte Observer this week.

“Then I just heard this noise and ducked because I thought somebody was shooting into the building.”

Both Rush and his uncle, Edward Martin, said the man who accidentally fired the gun tried to run out of the restaurant afterward, but another customer stopped him by the cashier’s stand.

Cracker Barrel declined to comment on the shooting because of the active investigation, a manager said.

Paramedics treated another person with minor gunshot wound injuries at the restaurant near the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, according to the police report.

Police gave Robert Prebble, 64, of Ohio, a citation for violating North Carolina concealed weapons law, according to CMPD. The Charlotte Observer could not reach Prebble.

It’s not clear whether Prebble had a permit for concealed carry, which is required in North Carolina, but the state also recognizes out of state permits.

Under North Carolina gun laws business owners may prohibit concealed weapons on their property. It is unclear what Cracker Barrel’s policy is.

Gun loaded before being dropped, firing

Prebble, according to the police report, was carrying a semi-automatic .45 pistol known as the 1911 Colt.

The 1911 Colt pistol, also known as the Colt Government Model pistol, had been widely used by the U.S. military before the company began selling to civilians, according to American Rifleman, an NRA publication. It was redesigned in the 1980s with better safety features — specifically a block system that stopped it from discharging if dropped or thrown on a hard surface, according to the NRA.

Rush’s uncle recognized the pistol as one he’d seen — and fired — when he served as a Marine. The process of completely loading the pistol and getting it ready to shoot is involved, Martin said. You must intentionally pull back the gun’s slide and check to make sure an active round is loaded from the magazine. The gun should have never been loaded in someone’s pocket, he said.

“With all of the gun violence going on right now, the mass shootings every week, how could they try to gloss this over so quietly,” Martin said.

He and Rush along with Rush’s ex-wife, had stopped at Cracker Barrel after Martin’s appointment at the VA hospital.

Embedded shrapnel and unanswered questions

After paramedics rushed him from a Cracker Barrel rocking chair to a hospital bed, doctors recommended Rush leave the pieces of metal in his leg. They told him it would be riskier to take them out, he said.

While the shrapnel in his legs will keep him from procedures and tests like MRI scans — something he anticipated needing at an upcoming doctor’s appointment — Rush agreed to let his wounds heal with the bullet casings still below his skin.

At the hospital, Rush says, a detective asked if he wanted to press charges against the man whose gun went off. Rush said he asked for some time to think about it while his mind cleared and his adrenaline settled.

When he called the department to ask about moving forward with charges, he says, he felt dissuaded by a detective.

He is still wondering why police issued a citation rather than arresting the man at the restaurant.

Carrying a concealed weapon charge is a misdemeanor on its first offense. Whether a suspect is arrested or cited is often at the discretion of the officer in charge of the case, according to CMPD.

North Carolina statute gives no explicit direction on arresting or citing someone who accidentally fires a concealed weapon, but does permit arrest when there is reason to believe the person “will not be apprehended unless immediately arrested.”

Prebble’s court date is June 9, according to Mecklenburg County’s District Attorney’s Office.