Juvenile suspect charged with attempted murder after Charlotte mall shooting
Charlotte NC March 23 2021 A suspect has been taken into custody after Charlotte’s Northlake Mall was evacuated after a report of a shooting on Saturday afternoon.
The juvenile suspect was charged with the attempted murder of a juvenile victim. Police did not release the suspect’s age, and the investigation remains ongoing.
Officers “located evidence of a shooting” but did not find anyone who was shot, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said on Twitter.
At about 4 p.m., uniformed CMPD officers working off-duty in the mall heard a gunshot inside near Entry 4, according to a CMPD news release Saturday night.
“The officers immediately called for back-up over the police radio” and headed toward Entry 4, where they found the evidence that a shot was fired, according to the release.
The officers and Northlake Mall management and security locked the mall down and evacuated everyone, police said. Charlotte firefighters and police searched the mall for any victims and suspects.
Medic took two people to the hospital by ambulance but not for gunshot wounds, police said. A third person was treated at the scene, also for an unrelated condition, according to CMPD.
Vanessa Infanzon, a Charlotte Observer arts correspondent, said she was leaving a movie at the mall when 40 officers, some with assault rifles, entered the lobby. She never learned why.
She and her husband had taken their son to a private showing of “Back to the Future” to celebrate his 13th birthday. Five friends arrived separately.
About 4:30 p.m., an hour and 15 minutes into the movie, a mom of one of the friends called her. Infanzon ignored the call and texted the woman instead.
“Call me,” the woman texted back. “There’s been a shooting at Northlake Mall, My niece is in the mall.”
Infanzon grabbed her husband and left the movie to call the woman and find out what they could, then returned to watch the rest of the film. She also texted the other moms.
“We are all OK,” Infanzon said in her text, adding that the children had no idea what was happening in the mall.
“I was pretty calm,” Infanzon said. “I’m shaking a little bit more now.”
Police ask that anyone with information call 911. Anonymous tips can be left on the Crime Stoppers line, 704-334-1600.
OTHER MALL SHOOTINGS
▪ On Dec. 24, Pineville police said they found no one hurt in Carolina Place Mall, after responding to over a dozen 911 calls reporting shots fired.
▪ On Dec. 28, 2019, a 13-year-old girl was killed and two boys had non-life threatening injuries after a shooting in a Concord Mills parking lot, Concord police said. Two teenagers were charged with first-degree murder and felony riot.
▪ In January 2019, a 24-year-old Charlotte man was shot and killed at Carolina Place, following what authorities at the time described as a fight inside a store. Khali Amir Holmes died in the shooting and police arrested another man in his death but his lawyer has said he acted in self-defense.
Charlotte Observer
