Three people suffered gunshot wounds Friday afternoon in a shooting at Eastridge Mall in Gastonia, N.C., setting off a massive police response.
GEMS reported it transported three people to CaroMont Regional Medical Center with gunshot wound injuries. None of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening.
Gastonia Police officers with guns drawn swarmed the Eastridge Mall after the 911 call came in at 12:10 p.m.
Police are questioning two people in the shooting, but had not made an arrest as of 3 p.m. Friday, said police spokesman Rick Goodale.
“We’re trying to see if they are suspects, if they’re not suspects, so we’re interviewing those two right now,” Goodale said. “We know we have at least one shooter. We don’t know if we have multiple.”
Goodale said that two men and a woman were shot. Those shot did not know each other and were not related in any way.
When police arrived, they found one man shot outside the mall with a bullet wound in his leg. Officers went inside and found a man and a woman who had also been shot.
Witnesses told police that after the shootings, two men ran from the mall. They were detained, Goodale said.
The weapon used, Goodale said, appears to have been a handgun.
Police also report there is no active threat at the mall, but have asked people to stay away. Police were still clearing the mall at around 2 p.m.
Gerardo Ugalde of Gastonia said that he was in the DMV when he heard three to four gunshots: “Bang! Bang! Bang!”
“And then the people running and screaming and crying,” he said.
Ugalde saw two of the people who were shot — a young man, with what appeared to be wounds in his arm and his leg, and a young woman around the same age with a wound in her leg.
As other people ran, “I was frozen,” Ugalde said.
Brett Benfield of Dallas said that he was in the Bath and Body Works when employees shut the store down. He and other customers waited in the back for around 20 minutes, until, he said, “they told us we needed to evacuate.”
By that time, he said, police were flooding the parking lot. Benfield said he thought initially that someone had brought a gun to the mall and others had overreacted. When he heard three people had been shot, he was shocked.
“It just blows my mind that something like this could happen in Gaston County,” Benfield said.
Gazette Photo Editor Mike Hensdill saw GEMS removing two people in gurneys from the Food Court side of the mall. The DMV office is near the mall’s Food Court.
Forty or more officers responded to the scene, including tactical teams.
The shooting apparently occurred outside the DMV office inside the mall near the mall’s Food Court.
You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-201-7016 or email him at kellis@gastongazette.com.
This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Gastonia Eastridge Mall shooting: Several people reported shot