Police say 1 killed at crowded US mall after argument

About 100 people were at the AMC Northlake movie theater and had just finished watching a 12:45 p.m. screening of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” when an employee came in and announced there had been a shooting and that the mall was on lockdown.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers stated the lifeless man, identified as Daquan Antonio Westbrook, 18, was the one individual shot & there have been no different reports of accidents.

Putney said Officer Thomas Ferguson was working off-duty at the mall when he heard the shots and confronted the man who pointed a gun in his direction. Authorities said the shooting was carried out by an officer. One person pulled out a gun and started “shooting everywhere”.

“This is not a random act of violence”, Putney said of the incident.

“We responded accordingly and I have to really thank those heroes for doing so”.

Putney says Ferguson fired his service weapon.

Witnesses told NBC station WCNC that they heard about a dozen shots. That’s the last thing last minute Christmas shoppers like Peg and her son expected, but she’s grateful to make it out alive.

Co-workers Natasha Columbus and Nicole Kirkpatrick were in a sporting-goods store on the lower level of the mall near the shoe store when the shots rang out.

They discovered that one man was armed.

“Pow, pow, pow, pow”, eight or nine in all, Kirkpatrick said.

Columbus said she bolted to the back of the store.

“Preliminary evidence gathered on scene indicates that a group of subjects who had a history of feuding encountered each other inside the mall and got into an altercation which led to Mr. Westbrook shooting a firearm”. Kirkpatrick went to the front, toward the sound of gunfire, and craned to see.

Traffic appeared to be in a gridlock as people tried to leave the mall area and ramps from I-77 to Northlake were shut down in both directions.

Fifteen to 20 feet away, she said, she saw a body.

Tiffany Archibald, with Medic 911 in Charlotte, said ambulances responded to an incident at the mall involving one patient with a leg injury, one pregnant patient in labor and one patient with an asthma attack.

The scene was chaotic, she said: People ran to their cars.