Two people were wounded in a New Year’s Eve shooting at the Mall of America.
The mall was locked down for about 45 minutes after the gunfire, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
The shooter fled the mall, police said. No arrest has yet been made.
Police said that one person was wounded in the leg and a second was grazed in the incident, which took place at about 5 p.m. on the third floor of the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall.
VIDEO: The moments after a shooting inside the Mall of America late this afternoon injured 2 people. The shooter fled, possibly in a vehicle, and the victims’ injuries are considered not life-threatening. The lockdown at the mall has since been lifted. pic.twitter.com/RiQenQATYV
— MN CRIME | Police/Fire/EMS (@MN_CRIME) January 1, 2022
“When we heard the shot and heard the screams we all got frazzled,” said Alexis Gonzalez, who works at the Windsor clothing store on the vast mall’s second level.
“We started seeing from out our store window that people were upstairs running. That’s when a girl came in our store saying someone got shot, and that’s when the mall lockdown alarms started, and people started rushing into our store,” he said.
BREAKING: The @mallofamerica is under a lockdown. A WCCO producer inside the mall says she and other shoppers were asked to get into the back of a store. | https://t.co/brm7kcqTCk pic.twitter.com/gABGKjPnIC
— WCCO – CBS Minnesota (@WCCO) December 31, 2021
“People were running trying to get into stores, and you could see mall security rushing over to the north side on the third level,” Gonzalez said.
Shopper Josh Ellingson was in the mall with his family when the lockdown began.
The family was “told we had to get into a store for a lockdown,” he said. “We didn’t get any other information other than that. We didn’t hear a whole lot other than the announcement and then being told we could leave. It was definitely a surreal situation.”
Deputy Bloomington Police Chief Kim Clauson said police were patrolling the third floor of the mall when one officer heard one gunshot.
BREAKING: The @mallofamerica is under a lockdown. A WCCO producer inside the mall says she and other shoppers were asked to get into the back of a store. | https://t.co/brm7kcqTCk pic.twitter.com/gABGKjPnIC
— WCCO – CBS Minnesota (@WCCO) December 31, 2021
“It does appear there was an altercation between two males before the shot was fired,” Clauson said.
Clauson noted that although the Mall of America does not allow guns on the premises, it also has no systems in place such as searches or metal detectors to give that policy any teeth, according to WCCO-TV.
Harlie Vaughn is visiting the #mallofamerica from Iowa and got separated from her parents during the lockdown. She says shoppers in Barnes & Noble were panicked as they waited for information. @WCCO pic.twitter.com/K0QkmKhqqB
— Kirsten Mitchell (@Kirsten_TV) January 1, 2022
Although the man hit in the leg was taken to a hospital for treatment, the individual who was grazed was treated at the scene and released.
The mall closed about 15 minutes after the lockdown was lifted, and canceled its planned New Year’s Eve activities.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
