Police: Utah mall shooting that wounded 2 was a gang dispute
Published 1:00 am Tuesday, January 15, 2019
MURRAY, Utah (AP) — A shooting at a suburban Salt Lake City mall that sent hundreds of panicked shoppers fleeing started as an argument between rival gang members inside the mall and later erupted in gunfire outside, leaving two people wounded, police said Monday.
Two 19-year-old men were arrested on suspicion of attempted aggravated murder, but investigators are not yet sure if either of them fired the shots that hit the victims, who were also involved in the fight, said Kenny Bass, a police spokesman in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray.
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Shots were fired by the both sides, and those injured were believed to be people with the gangs. No bystanders were hit or injured, Bass said.
Compounding the pandemonium, a fire alarm at the Fashion Place mall that had been malfunctioning for days went off inside the mall, sending people running for exits, Bass said.
Shoppers reported hearing the alarm after the shooting started about 1:30 p.m. and evacuation orders over a loudspeaker, while employees said they hunkered down in stockrooms and waited.
The first alarm was inadvertent and happened seconds before the shooting from the food court, triggering a subsequent message on the loudspeaker that it was false, said Lindsay Kahn, spokeswoman for Chicago-based Brookfield Properties, which owns the mall. After the shooting, a second message was played telling people to evacuate or take shelter, Kahn said in a statement.
“We recognize this created confusion and was truly an unfortunate coincidence,” Kahn said.
Kahn said the company is reviewing security measures, but declined to disclose details.