One person is dead and two others are injured in a shooting at a shopping mall in Rosemont, Illinois.
One man is dead and a 15-year-old girl is critically injured following a weekend shooting at a shopping mall on the outskirts of Chicago. Rosemont police said an “isolated and targeted” shooting took place near the food court inside the mall.
According to Rosemont Public Safety Officials, one person of interest has been located in connection to the mall shooting. The shooting occurred just after 7:00 pm at the Fashion Outlets of Chicago in Rosemont, a shopping center located right next to O’Hare International Airport.
Gary Mack, a Rosemont Police Spokesman, said: “One person has died, two people have been injured while the fourth victim allegedly escaped the shooting.” The teen girl injured in the shooting is expected to survive after being struck in the wrist.
Authorities had been looking for two people who fled the scene in a red car but have since located one person of interest, a motive remains unknown, but Mack said officials are not ruling out the possibility that this was a targeted attack.
Rosemont Public Safety released a statement on Twitter providing an update after multiple reports of shots fired. The statement reads: “2 confirmed gunshot victims have been transported to the hospital. A search of the mall to clear rooms is underway. The offender is not on scene.”
Following the shooting, panicked shoppers huddled in stores as police cleared the mall room by room. Officers had gone store by store evacuating the mall.
Many shoppers took to social media to share their experiences. Stringer Harris, one of the shoppers, posted a video to Facebook showing an armed police officer patrolling the first floor of the mall. Harris said he was on the second floor near the Prada store when he heard gunshots.
Another shopper twitted: “I was at the Fashion Outlets in Rosemont having dinner in the food court when I heard 6 shots, some ran towards locked exit doors, including me. We ran to the other exit out to safety.”
Residents are still urged to avoid the area as it is still an active crime scene. The investigation is intact and still ongoing while a reunification site for people separated from friends and family was established at the Caddy Shack restaurant on the other side of Balmoral Avenue from the mall.
The investigation is being handled by Rosemont detectives with forensics help from the Major Case Assistance Team (MCAT), a multi-jurisdictional force that supports the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
While murders are roughly flat so far in 2022 compared to last year, they are up 24 percent from 2020 and 74 percent from 2019.
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