The Mall of America was briefly placed on lockdown Thursday after several shots were fired at the Bloomington shopping destination.
Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said the shooting was an “isolated incident” involving a dispute between two groups of people. He said police believe only one person fired shots and that there are no indications that anyone was injured.
Hours later, police were still searching for the suspect, who fled on foot. Hodges said officers believed for a time that he was hiding in a hotel near the mall, but that was not the case.
The shots rang out shortly after 4 p.m. near or inside a Nike store on the northwest side of the three-level mall, scaring nearby shoppers and creating a chaotic scene captured on cellphone videos that quickly spread on social media. Mall security imposed a blockade and large groups of shoppers crammed into the back rooms of the stores.
“We cannot continue with this disregard for human life,” Hodges said at a news conference Thursday night at the mall. To the suspect, he said, “Please surrender.”
Kate Rutledge, who had driven from Des Moines, Iowa, to shop at the mall with her husband and four children Thursday morning, said she heard three or four gunshots.
She, her husband and two sons were “running like hell,” Rutledge said as they waited outside the Nordstrom department store. The lockdown had just been lifted and they were waiting for their two daughters who were elsewhere in the mall and locked in another store.
Rutledge said she kept in touch with her daughters through text messages during the lockdown.
Hodges said investigators believe it all started with an argument between two groups of people…
Add Comment