Three people were killed at a mall in Greenwood, Ind., on Sunday in a shooting that ended when an armed man fatally shot the gunman, city authorities said.
Two additional people were hospitalized in the shooting, which began at around 6 p.m. Eastern time when a man with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition entered the mall’s food court and started firing, Chief Jim Ison of the Greenwood Police Department said. The authorities did not indicate a motive for the shooting and did not identify the gunman.
The injured were a 12-year-old girl who suffered a very minor wound on her back and another person who was in stable condition, Chief Ison said.
Mayor Mark Myers said late Sunday that the public faced no further threat and that the Police Department was in control of the scene. He asked the public to stay away from the area.
“I’ve been a police officer most of my life,” he said in an interview. “Still, this is incredibly shocking, to not only me but our entire community.”
Hours after the shooting at the mall, four people were shot, one of them fatally, in a separate shooting at a vigil in a park in Beech Grove, Ind., about nine miles north of Greenwood.
Addressing the Greenwood shooting at a news conference on Sunday, Chief Ison said that the local emergency call center began to receive calls about the shooting around 6 p.m. He said the threat ended when an armed passer-by, who had a handgun, stopped the gunman. “It appears that a good Samaritan that was armed observed the shooting in progress and shot the shooter,” he said.
Mr. Ison identified the passer-by only as a 22-year-old man from Bartholomew County, which is about 35 miles south of the mall, adding that he was lawfully carrying a gun. In a statement, Mr. Myers praised the man’s actions.
“Someone we are calling the ‘good Samaritan’ was able to shoot the assailant and stop further bloodshed,” Mr. Myers said. “I am grateful for his quick action and heroism in this situation.”
Chief Ison had said that investigators and other personnel would not process the crime scene at the mall until a state bomb squad could determine whether a “suspicious” backpack that was left in a mall bathroom was dangerous. Late Sunday, he said that investigators had not found an explosive device and that they had cleared the backpack.
The police said on Facebook that they were seeking witnesses to the shooting, which took place about 15 miles south of Indianapolis.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said on Twitter that it was helping the local authorities.
The shooting in Beech Grove, a city of about 15,000 people southeast of Indianapolis, was reported at about 9:30 p.m. Eastern time. One person was killed and three were in stable condition as of Monday morning, the authorities said.
This shooting, during a vigil in Don Challis Park, was targeted, the Beech Grove mayor, Dennis Buckley, said at a news conference on Monday morning. Some Beech Grove emergency responders were in Greenwood for the mall shooting at the time, officials said.
“We are a good city,” Mr. Buckley said. “But sometimes evil finds us, so we have to regroup and continue to move forward.”
April Rubin and Alex Traub contributed reporting.
Source: NY Times