Posted on 11/22/2008 5:08:40 PM PST by microgood
TUKWILA - At least two people were hit by gunfire in a shooting Saturday afternoon inside Southcenter Mall as it was filled with pre-Thanksgiving shoppers, witnesses said.
An off-duty sergeant with the Washington State Patrol at the scene said one victim underwent CPR after being hit. Two victims later were rushed by ambulance to the hospital.
Two other people were put in handcuffs by officers at the scene, the trooper said.
Other witnesses told KOMO News they heard at least three shots fired just after 3:30 p.m. in front of the Forever 21 store near the mall's food court.
The gunfire sparked immediate panic, and people started running for the exits.
Police raced to the scene in their patrol cars, lights flashing.
Shoppers are being evacuated from the mall, and officers are trying to determine exactly what happened and whether a shooter remains at large.
More updates will be posted as information becomes available.
Seems we are getting a lot of gun news lately.
KING5 reporting unconfirmed reports that one of the victims died at Harborview.
1 dead, 1 injured in Southcenter Mall shooting Top Stories NWCN.com Northwest News and Weather
One man is dead and another is in critical condition after a shooting in the Southcenter Mall Saturday afternoon.
(edit)
The suspect is described as a black man in his late teens to early 20s, 5-foot 6-inches tall, 145 pounds. He was wearing some sort of black jumper. He has short hair and no facial hair.
I used to live up the hill from Southcenter in Sea-Tac, and me and wifey (girlfriend then) used to go there fairly often, the restaurants on Southcenter boulevard, the electronics stores, and the places she liked.
Now I live about 17 miles away from there and have not set foot in the place literally like for the last four years or so. I can get everything I need locally.
And you’re right. It had a much more gangsta feeling the last time I was there, like the Rainier Ave neighborhood is moving west.
The closest I get these days is RE-PC to check for parts or whatever.
Agreed.
The closest I get these days is RE-PC to check for parts or whatever.
A GREAT place :-)
For those of you who have never lived in the area, Southcenter is the largest mall in the Seattle area, and is located south of the city proper near SeaTac airport. The mall itself is at the center of a huge sprawling mess of retailers, and is always crowded (even during a recession).
I put together one of my desktops from there. An ASUS dual processor board, I slapped in dual matching 1000MHZ PIII’s, and threw in about 320 gig of hard drive and a raid controller.
Been humming ever since then, almost 3 years now, total cost came to about 120 bucks.
The Rogue Valley Mall in Medford allows carry...at least they have no signs prohibiting it.
Ed
Impossible, because that mall is probably a gun-free zone.
WOW :-)
Sounds very nice. Reminds me that I need to rebuild the stoatputer one of these days. Hopefully I’ll have some time for that after Christmas...which reminds me of another wonderful thing about the internet...I can (and usually do) most or all of my shopping online, which means that I don’t have to fret about being in the crossfire between a bunch of gangbangers at the mall. Although I ALWAYS leave home nicely armed, the paperwork in the aftermath of something like that would most likely be something to avoid if at all possible.
1 dead, 1 injured in Southcenter Mall shooting Top Stories NWCN.com Northwest News and Weather
(edit)
Police locked down the mall as they searched store to store for the shooter. They weren't sure if the suspect left with the crowd or if he was still inside.
Both victims are well known to law enforcement. Jones just got out of jail on Friday. McGowan was due in court Monday on burglary charges.
Police say an altercation in the mall's south end preceeded the shooting.
The shooter opened fire on the ground floor near the south main entrance of the mall in a corridor between BJ's Brewhouse and Racha Thai and Asian Kitchen.
"They were both inside the mall on the first level in the new section of the mall," said Tukwila Police spokesman Mike Murphy of the victims. "We don't have any information so far as far as what led up to the shots."
The shooting suspect is described as a black man in his late teens to early 20s, 5-foot 6-inches tall, 145 pounds. He may have been wearing some sort of black track suit with red piping. He has short hair and no facial hair.
Thousands of people were in the mall when the shots rang out.
"Nobody else has been injured as a result of this," Murphy said.
The sheer size of the mall complicated the search. The mall recently completed a $240 million expansion and now covers 1.7 million square feet of space with more than 240 stores.
Police detained two people, but said they were still looking for the shooter. It's not clear what either person's connection to the shooting was.
"We were just eating our lunch and all the sudden gunshots started going off," she told KING 5. "It was like a stampede of people … there were actually people jumping off the balcony where the food court is at. It was crazy."
Julie Kintner was in the mall when shots were fired.
"I was getting a Cinnabon and all of the sudden I hear this pop and I turn around," she said. "I hear another pop and I look over the rail as far as I could see and people just started running."
Police say there was another shooting at about 6:40 p.m. Friday outside the mall. No one was hit and it's not clear whether there is a connection to Saturday's incident.
Daiquan and Jermaine?
Musta shot them because of their names.
Kinda like that “Beyonce” thingy, got news for ya lady, Beyonce ain’t even a word, much less a name!
C’est la francais noir!
LMAO
Indeed :-)
Commenters at the NWCN site are saying that in a report from Linda Brill at King5, at least one family member of a victim is interviewed who characterized the shooting as a ‘gang turf war’ and how it “Isn’t over”. And of course the usual family members saying how they were “good boys”, yadda yadda yadda.
Still looking for an online transcript of the above interview to confirm, but several posters are referencing the same Linda Brill report in the same way...it could well be that it was a broadcast only and hasn’t been put on the net....not very PC, after all, and apparently KING5 is HEAVILY editing all web comments on this.
One aspect of these news reports is interesting Stoat. The first thing that they do in response to these incidents is to lock the doors.
That’s OK I suppose if you’re out, but what if you’re in? Now you’re trapped inside with a potential serial killer.
I’ve never been a panicky sort of person and normally wouldn’t join the stampede but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow someone to herd me or corral me like that.
I guess I’ll have to rethink my strategies for those few occasions when I’m in places like Southcenter...
I think, that given his "status", it should only be expected that his fixing things like that should be a major expectation of the American public. If he doesn't fix it it will be a major personal failure for him. (The above nonsense will be my line on this subject.)
That’s OK I suppose if you’re out, but what if you’re in? Now you’re trapped inside with a potential serial killer.
I’ve never been a panicky sort of person and normally wouldn’t join the stampede but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow someone to herd me or corral me like that.
I guess I’ll have to rethink my strategies for those few occasions when I’m in places like Southcenter...
I agree it's a weird situation to be in as a customer....one moment you're shopping in a store and the next moment they've rolled down the security barrier and the pimply-faced kid with the plastic name badge tells you that it's 'store policy' in these sorts of situations...and if you say that you HAVE to leave because you need to get back home to take care of your sick grandmother who needs her medication or you have children in a different store at the mall, you're branded a 'troublemaker' and you are instantly focused upon by the overzealous mall cops. I've read accounts of this where some people say they were held inside Macy's for FOUR HOURS. A pleasant shopping experience can turn into a nightmare in an instant.
I don't know if there's a perfect solution for this other than always being armed (most of us probably do that anyway), always having a cellphone with you (and any children having at least one phone among them as well) , have a 'disaster / separation plan' with children, always carrying essential medications on your person rather than in the glove compartment and perhaps considering some of the lessons learned after 9/11. Make sure you have some coinage with you in case cell service is unavailable or you have to access a vending machine (a film cannister stuffed with quarters is easy to carry in a coat pocket)....various things like that.
I work in prehospital emergency medical services, oftentimes at big public events, and I am oftentimes astounded at how poorly prepared people are....a FREQUENT scenario is an older, infirm person who rode the bus an hour to get to the event...the weather changes for the worse or the person experiences a medical emergency and we find that they have no coat or suitable garment for the changed weather, they don't have medication with them that they need, etc. etc...they don't think for a moment that things can change and all of a sudden they are very much at risk of grave harm and in the middle of a completely unnecessary life-threatening event.
As to being caught in a shopping-mall lockdown, I'm afraid that this is just one more reason why I will be spending my Christmas shopping money online...I'll be getting a better selection and usually at better prices too.
Words of wisdom from yet another GREAT AMERICAN! =)
((((BLUSHING))))
awwww....you’re very sweet and a truly great American as well :-)
Apparently the mall in question just completed a huge remodel involving hundreds of millions of dollars and so HOPEFULLY they might acquire an interest in protecting their investment by instructing security staff to profile troublemakers and eject them, but I won’t hold my breath. I guess the mall is part of one gang’s ‘turf’ and so there are racial demographics involved, which means weak knees on the part of facility managers and corporate policy writers.
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