Two injured after fight leads to shooting inside Nordstrom at Norfolk mall
NORFOLK VA February 16 2019
A gunman shot two people during a brawl inside MacArthur Center on Thursday afternoon, sending shoppers fleeing and throwing downtown Norfolk into chaos.
Norfolk police said Thursday night that they detained three people, including one person who was shot. They said more information would be released once formal charges are secured.
Leanna Jacques, 25, had just gotten to the mall to replace the stone in her wedding ring when she heard the first shot at 2:15 p.m. She looked over and saw a man fall.
Then she heard three to four more shots.
“It was close, ear-deafeningly close,” she said. “I was thinking Columbine.”
Norfolk police said a fight inside the mall led to the shooting and that two people — a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old — were taken to hospitals but were expected to live. Jim Wofford, the mall’s general manager, said the shots were fired at the Nordstrom end of the mall.
After the shooting, officers swarmed the area and swept the ground, some with military-style rifles and at least one with a dog. At 3:30 p.m., people trying to leave the mall’s parking garage in cars were gridlocked, blocked by police as they continued to investigate. Tidewater Community College said its Norfolk campus was locked down from about 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. The mall was locked down for about two hours, police said.
Seth Schaill, 19, said he was sitting on the first floor outside Nordstrom, near Rue21 and Rootz, for a group job interview. Two groups of young men — about 10 to 12 total — looked at each other like they knew one another. Without saying anything, they started brawling. During the melee, one guy grabbed a trash can lid and threw it at someone else. It missed.
The intended target drew a gun and pulled the trigger, but it didn’t fire, Schaill said. The shooter racked it and fired six shots in quick succession at people who were about 15 feet away. Schaill said he watched the shooting as he was running away and looking over his shoulder.
Schaill said he didn’t see anyone get hit, but watched paramedics load two young men into ambulances. One had bandages on his arm and knee; the other had two bandages on his leg.
Victoria Hritsko, 20, who was in on the same job interview, said she saw bloody bandages on one young man’s thigh and ankle, and on the other’s foot.
Ken Whitehurst said he was at the mall grabbing coffee and caught the aftermath of the shooting. He said he walked up around 2:15 p.m. and saw two people on the ground who had been hurt. First responders were helping them.
“I was walking in the corridor of the mall towards Nordstrom,” he said. “There was a guy lying on the ground in the entrance. There was a person lying on the ground there, and then police detained a small group of people standing around.”
He said it looked like young people had been fighting in the area. Police were holding everyone there and then detectives showed up, Whitehurst said. He was there for about 20 to 30 minutes before mall security told him he could leave.
He also saw an employee who works at a mall kiosk crying, he said.
“It’s surreal,” he said. “It obviously freaked out a bunch of people.”
Hadden Louk, who owns the clothing boutique Starlight Exchange with his wife Whitney, was working Thursday afternoon when he and a few customers heard four or five shots.
“I could hear it, clear as day,” he said. So he closed the store’s gate and huddled in the store’s bathroom with the customers for about 10 minutes until it was clear they could leave.
In an email, a MacArthur Center spokeswoman said the mall reopened around 3:30 p.m. A few minutes after 4 p.m., police said the area was safe.
But officers were still investigating the shooting, and the mall entrance to Nordstrom remained closed late Thursday afternoon.
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