San Francisco Bay Area police are searching for two suspects in a mall shooting that prompted an evacuation and snarled commuter traffic on Tuesday night.
Authorities
believe the suspects targeted two victims and did not randomly shoot at
people, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said at a press conference.
One
victim is in critical condition and the other in serious condition, San
Francisco General Hospital spokesperson Brent Andrew said.
Both suffered lower extremity gunshot wounds, San Bruno Fire Chief David
Cresta said.
The suspects may have fled the mall
about 10 miles south of downtown San Francisco via mass
transit, Barberini said. Bay Area Rapid Transit shut down the train station next to the Shops at Tanforan for four hours and closed a central station in Oakland for less than 30 minutes, the service tweeted.
Transit police
helped search a train for the suspects and are identifying lines they
could have escaped on, Barberini said. In everyday crimes, Barberini
said it's not uncommon for mall thieves to flee on public transit.
Identifying information on the suspects was not immediately available.
"Any
shooting is a tragic, silly, stupid event," Barberini said. "When
you do it in a shopping mall or any sort of area where there's going
to be a lot of people, shows a true disregard and it's a senseless
act."
Jezabelle Catig, 20, said she was working in
the kitchen at the mall's BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse when her
coworkers told her about the shooting. The 20 to 30 restaurant employees
and 10 customers hid behind machines and walls.
"Every time we looked out, there were more cops,” she said. “Everyone was calling their moms, their loved ones.”
Social media posts showed police escorting people out of the mall
The mall is scheduled to reopen Wednesday morning, police said. Authorities responded to the scene shortly after 4 p.m.
Two additional people sustained injuries related to the incident, Cresta said, but were not hit by gunfire.
The investigation is ongoing.
No comments:
Post a Comment