An exchange of gunfire at a food court inside a Louisiana mall on Thursday killed one person and wounded five others and sent workers and shoppers scrambling for safety, police and witnesses said.
The authorities described the shooting inside the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge as a confrontation between two groups of people and not a random attack. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said some innocent bystanders were struck by gunfire.
Police Chief TJ Morse said five people were in custody and there was no ongoing threat to the public. “This was a disagreement, a fight, between two different groups of people that we are still trying to unravel, and unfortunately innocent victims got caught in the crossfire," Morse said in a news conference.
Three high school seniors from Ascension Episcopal School were among the victims of the shooting, according to a Facebook post from Lafayette Parish President Monique Blanco Boulet.
“We are heartbroken by the senseless violence that happened today at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge,” she said, adding that she was asking her community to “join us in holding all of these families close in prayer.” Rachel Delcambre, a spokesperson for the school, said in an email that the school would not be giving additional information at this time “out of deep respect for the families and the sensitivity of this situation”.
The authorities initially said as many as 10 people had been injured but later revised that number. Morse did not immediately say what set off the shooting at the mall in the Louisiana capital. He said police would not release the names of victims until families have been notified.
Alex Theriot, a commercial electrician, was working on a construction project in the mall a few hundred feet from the food court when gunfire erupted and he heard what sounded like plates of glass shattering. Thinking a shooter might be going store to store, he quickly screwed the door shut of his work site and hunkered down with two other workers. They waited and hoped for the best.
“Everybody was running and screaming,” Theriot told The Associated Press. “I thought it could have been a terrorist attack.” Desire Batton, who works at a clothing store, said she and other workers dashed inside a breakroom to protect themselves. “We hid in there until cops came and got us,” Batton said. The shooting began around 1:30 p.m. when the two groups argued inside the food court and started shooting at each other, Morse said.
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