Three people, including a 10-year-old, were reportedly shot amid Black Friday shopping at a mall in North Carolina.
The child was injured from a bullet ricochet and taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries, WRAL News reported on Friday.
One person is in custody in connection to the incident at The Streets at Southpoint shopping center.
The shooting broke out between two groups of people who knew each other shortly before 3.30pm, Durham police chief Patrice Andrews said.
‘The shootings in this city have got to stop,’ Andrews said.
Durham Councilman Mark-Anthony Middleton told WRAL News that ‘the situation is still fluid, but of course we’re all deeply, deeply concerned’.
‘This is Black Friday. This is a huge shopping day. We know a lot of people are out after the holiday trying to do shopping,’ Middleton said.
The mall was locked down and evacuated with a large police presence at 5pm.
A Nordstrom employee told WRAL News that he heard heard up to six gunshots.
The victims’ conditions were not immediately known.
The mall was closed for the rest of the day and until further notice, and the Durham Police Department urged the public to avoid the area.
WRAL reporter Aaron Thomas happened to be shopping at the mall at the time of the incident.
‘We were in the Express store, and I was looking around at one of the clothing racks, and all of a sudden, I see this swarm of people running,’ Thomas said.
Details including why the two groups were at the mall on Black Friday, traditionally the biggest retail shopping day of the year, were not immediately known.
