By Hanna Bogorowski
A 12-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man were injured at a mall near Birmingham, Ala., Thursday night after a fight led to one suspect pulling out a gun and shooting the other.
Witnesses told NBC News that hundreds of Black Friday shoppers fled the mall after gun shots were reported around 10 p.m. local time Thursday.
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Hoover Police Captain Gregg Rector said the 18-year-old man was in serious condition after he was shot by the gunman after a fight, for reasons not yet known, broke out. The gunman, reportedly a 21-year-old man, was fatally shot by a police officer as he tried to flee the scene.
Gunman killed during Black Friday sales at Alabama mall. https://t.co/S1WiexgK1j pic.twitter.com/UvjBw0acGV
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 23, 2018
A nearby 12-year-old girl was also struck by a bullet, but police are not yet sure if she was accompanied by the shooter or man he was fighting. (RELATED: Gunman Fatally Shoots Woman in Catholic Supply Store)
She is being treated at Children’s Hospital and is in stable condition.
BREAKING: Reported shooting at Alabama mall. https://t.co/Z4p0t9m3Pi
— Heidi Hatch (@tvheidihatch) November 23, 2018
Multiple witnesses told WTVM that they heard as many as ten gun shots. The Hoover police chief said he was “very very proud” of his officers’ response to the incident.
Shoppers recalled a chaotic scene as people rushed for the exits, screaming and trying to find somewhere to hide.
“They [put] us in supply closets and locked the doors,” Lexie Joyner, a witness, told WBRC. “And then we sat there for five to 10 minutes, all freaking out.”
“And then they opened the escape-route doors, and we escaped through the escape-route doors,” Joyner added.
The mall, Riverchase Galleria outside Hoover, was expected to remain open until midnight and reopened at 6 a.m. Friday.
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