After a murder in Minter late Sunday night, the person of interest in the case is now booked in the Dallas County Jail. Rockel Hardy, 35, was arrested from a Montgomery hospital at 11 a.m. on Wednesday as he was being treated for a gunshot wound to the buttocks.

As Hardy opened fire on 47-year-old J.C. Gaines of Minter at Benny’s Place on Sunday, witnesses say Hardy shot at Gaines three times, hitting him twice and making him fall to the ground. Once on the ground Hardy reportedly stood over Gaines and shot him again in the chest.

“During this time the suspect then received a gunshot wound to the buttocks,” Dallas County Sheriff Harris Huffman said. “But nobody seems to know where that shot came from, we are still investigating.”

Huffman described the wound to Hardy’s buttocks as, “the size of a softball.”

Hardy, of Pine Apple, was charged with murder first degree and given a $2 million bond. The victim, Gaines, was pronounced dead on arrival at Vaughan Regional Medical Center later on Sunday night after his friends took him by personal vehicle.

Benny’s Place, where the incident occurred, is located at 216 Dallas County Road 4 in Minter.

“It seems two individuals were inside a bar — or shotgun house — they call it Benny’s place and there was a verbal altercation on the inside that resulted in a physical altercation on the outside,” Huffman said. “There were some punches from the victim and a suspect then the suspect went to a vehicle and retrieved a .22 caliber assault rifle.”