CHARLOTTE — One person was killed Thursday afternoon in an officer-involved shooting at Northlake Mall in north Charlotte.
It was not immediately clear who fired the fatal shot.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said early information indicates an argument started inside the mall around 2 p.m. Thursday between two groups of people.
Officers who were working off-duty at the mall arrived on the scene.
At least one person was shot during the altercation, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities said one person suffered a leg injury after the incident. Two other people were being treated, one who had gone into labor and another patient who had an asthma attack, emergency officials tweeted. No officers were hurt, according to CMPD.
Northlake is on the northwest corner of Interstate 77 and W.T. Harris Boulevard.
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Witnesses said the shooting occurred in Journey’s, a store on the lower level of the mall near Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Jeff Keith, deputy director with Mecklenburg EMS, said the mall was closed late Thursday evening and people were still hiding in stores or trying to find loved ones. Police told family members to go to the AMC theater parking lot to look for relatives.
John Dawson, a salesman who lives in Charlotte, said he was at the mall buying a gift for his date when the shooting erupted. He said it began with an argument inside a store, which he said was packed with customers.
“There was a dude fighting with one or two dudes, and I kind of stopped and looked over there,” Dawson said. One person pulled out a gun and started “shooting everywhere.”
He said other shoppers began running when the shots were fired and that a police officer was nearby and returned the fire.
Dawson said the suspect appeared to have been hit twice by the officer. He said he backed up against a wall and watched as people fled the scene.
Don Willis, who works as a valet at the mall, said he heard gunshots, then saw a wave of people exiting the mall.
“It was wild. I heard the first shot and I thought, ‘Wait. What was that?’ And kind of like started turning around and walking and saw this huge line of people — wave of people coming — and I thought a bomb was about to go off, and I just took off,” he said.
Co-workers Natasha Columbus and Nicole Kirkpatrick were in the Locker Room sporting goods store on the lower level of the mall when the shots rang out. “Pow, pow, pow, pow,” eight or nine in all, Kirkpatrick said. “I think he emptied a clip — whatever is in a clip.”
Columbus said she bolted to the back of the store. Kirkpatrick went to the front, toward the sound of gunfire, and looked through a store window.
Fifteen to 20 feet away in the mall commons, she says, she saw a body lying prone on the polished floor.
Zindy Cruz, 19, was in the food court eating Taco Bell with her brother and father when they heard the shots being fired. She and her family ducked under their table until things calmed down.
Justin Biddle, 19, and his girlfriend Chyna Williams, were at the mall Thursday for some last-minute shopping for her mother.
They had gotten off the escalator in Macy’s, headed for Victoria’s Secret, when dozens of shoppers — “too many to count,” Chyna said — thundered toward them.
They ran with the crowd, they said, asking questions as they went.
Shots had been fired, they were told, and someone had been hit.
By the time they got outside, the first of dozens of police cars were filling the mall parking lot.
Minutes later, they stood in a light rain, holding hands, waiting for their ride, feeling lucky they hadn’t reached the mall any earlier.
Williams, 17, and Biddle recalled the panic she and the others felt inside the building.
“We feel blessed that we weren’t shot,” Biddle said. “But we’re feeling badly for the victims and families that did get hit.”
Around them, the mall parking lot slowly emptied. Helicopters swirled overhead. Sirens continued to blare as more police cars and ambulances roared up and down W.T. Harris Boulevard.
Biddle and Williams apparently had seen enough. While dozens of other bystanders continued to stare over the scene, the couple walked away, still holding hands.
Caryl Santos, a 20-year-old sophomore at East Carolina University, said she was standing in the checkout line at Belk when suddenly people began running toward the exit.
“I had no idea what to do so I grabbed my mom, dropped my stuff and ran out of the store,” she said.
The scene was chaotic, she said: People ran to their cars. Some hid behind dumpsters.
“It was so terrifying,” said Santos, who did not actually hear gunshots go off.
“I heard it was more on the Dillard’s side of the mall, but I thought it happened in Belk because of the amount of people running out.”
“It was like Black Friday all over again,” she said.
Northlake Mall, which opened Sept. 2005, is a 1.1-million square foot enclosed regional shopping center.
In 2014, original owner Taubman Center Inc. sold the mall to Starwood Capital Group.
In 2009, Northlake launched a curfew requiring adult supervision for anyone under age 18 on Fridays and Saturdays after 5 p.m.
In 2012, a man was arrested and charged in connection with a shooting outside of the Dick’s Sporting Goods and Dillard’s store at Northlake. Police said at the time they believed the shooting was not random.