Jeffrey Philip Maher

A man who’d been fired from Moe’s Southwest Grill went into the Dilworth restaurant just after lunchtime Thursday and fatally shot two of his former bosses, police said.

A Mecklenburg sheriff’s deputy who’d been escorting a funeral procession past the restaurant captured and held the suspected gunman.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police would not talk about a motive, but said Derrick Lamont Gregory, 28, was fired from Moe’s two or three weeks ago. He worked there about a month.

Gregory is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of assistant manager Jeffrey Philip Maher, 34, and managing partner Vincent Patrick Ferens, 36.

About a dozen customers were inside the East Boulevard restaurant just before the 2:45 p.m. shootings. None of them were injured.

Some customers ran to the FedEx Kinko’s store next door and locked themselves inside. Others huddled behind parked cars.

The deputy was flagged down by a customer who ran outside and told him someone inside had a gun, said Maj. Walter Pummell, with the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office. The deputy approached the restaurant with his gun drawn as shots rang out from inside the store, witnesses said.

Robert Dees, who was working at Dikadee’s Deli across the street from Moe’s, said he saw a man sprint out the side door of the restaurant. The deputy ordered the man to lie on his stomach and held him there until backup arrived, Dees said.

When officers went inside, Maher was already dead. Ferens died later at nearby Carolinas Medical Center. Police said both had been shot more than once.

It’s unclear how long they worked for Moe’s. A neighbor said Ferens was married and had children. A friend said Maher was from Arizona and used to work at a deli on Providence Road in south Charlotte.

Several people who work in nearby businesses said a fight broke out at the restaurant two weeks ago; at least two people said Gregory was involved. Police records show officers were called to the restaurant for a disturbance at 2:28 p.m. on Sept. 13, but the responding officer didn’t make a report.

After the shooting, police interviewed employees and other witnesses at the police station. Police cars brought them back to the restaurant about 6 p.m. Officers went into the building and brought purses to two women. They took a set of car keys and drove one car out of the roped-off parking lot for its owner. A woman in a turquoise Moe’s T-shirt wept as she drove away. The employees weren’t the only ones shaken up.

Frank McKinney, who works in the Key Man Building across the street and had lunch at Moe’s, said he left the restaurant about 20 minutes before the shots rang out. He stood on the sidewalk across from the restaurant shaking his head as a police crime scene truck pulled up.

“The ice hasn’t even melted in my cup yet,” McKinney said after the shooting. “I just left there.