BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota. (AP) — Five people have been arrested in the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man at the Mall of America that shut down the sprawling mall on one of the final days of the holiday shopping season, police said. said Saturday.
At an evening press conference, Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges announced the arrests in connection with the Friday night shooting in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington and said all would be charged with murder, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Hodges said the suspects arrested were two 18-year-old males and three 17-year-old males, according to the Star Tribune, and that they were taken into custody in the morning at a home in St. Louis, next to SWAT team officers from three jurisdictions.
The chief added that one of the 18-year-olds is believed to be the shooter, though another suspect may have fired a gun. A sixth suspect was still being sought.
“In Bloomington, if you come here and kill people in our mall, you get one for Christmas,” Hodges told the paper while wearing an orange jail jumpsuit.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted Saturday that the mall shooting was “absolutely unacceptable. We are working with local officials to provide them with the support and resources they need.”
Police have not yet identified the slain 19-year-old, but Bloomington Chief and Mayor Tim Busse has spoken with the man’s relatives.
Friday’s shooting at a Nordstrom store in the nation’s largest mall sent frightened customers running for safety. A spectator is said to have had his jacket crushed by a bullet.
There appeared to be some sort of altercation between two groups, which turned into a fist fight, and someone pulled out a gun and shot the victim multiple times, according to police. The whole incident lasted about 30 seconds.
A nearby Bloomington police officer, one of 16 stationed at the mall that day, heard the gunshots around 7:50 p.m. The policeman tried lifesaving measures, but the victim died.
The lockdown lasted about an hour before the mall tweeted that shoppers were being kicked out. Videos posted on social media showed shoppers hiding in stores, and a notice in the mall warned people to take cover.
Since it opened in 1992, the Mall of America has been a tourist destination and community gathering place. It bans guns on the premises, but shoppers are generally not required to go through metal detectors. The mall said in October it was testing a “weapon detection system” at one of its entrances.
The mall went on lockdown in August after a shooting at the mall in suburban Minneapolis sent some shoppers running for cover, and two people were injured last New Year’s Eve during an apparent altercation.
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