A shooting occurred on Saturday at a mall in Columbia, South Carolina, and injuries were reported.
"What we know is currently is that there are 12 injured and no fatalities I repeat no fatalities," Columbia Police Department Chief William H. Holbrook said in a Saturday press conference. "This is a very preliminary report," he added.
"At 2:03 we received information about gunfire at the Gap store at the mall, this prompted a wide response by law enforcement," said
"10 suffered gunshot wounds and eight were transported to area hospitals. Of the eight gunshot victims, two are in critical but stable condition and six are in stable condition. There are an additional two that were injured during the stampede," Holbrook said.
"Three people are detained, they are classified as people of interest at this point. At least three people were seen with firearms inside the mall and at least one person fired a weapon. The Chief refused to give out the age of those detained," Holbrook told reporters.
"We're asking anybody with information that may have witnessed a video or has heard something in the contact our Criminal Investigations Bureau"
Statement from @ColumbianaCtr: “Today’s isolated, senseless act of violence is extremely upsetting and our thoughts are with everyone impacted. We are grateful for the quick response and continued support of our security team and our partners in law enforcement.”
— Columbia Police Dept (@ColumbiaPDSC) April 16, 2022
"The public is asked to stay out of the area this is an ongoing situation, and we have a lot of the area closed down."
"At the moment teams are going methodically through the mall and are removing folks they find that have found shelter," Holbrook informed.
"I don't believe this was random," the Chief told reporters, "I think that's very important in situations like this, we believe that the individuals that were armed knew each other and there was some type of conflicts that occurred the result that resulted in gunfire." This was not a situation where we had some random person show up at a mall to discharge a firearm and just injure people"
It is still unknown how many shots were fired at the mall.
"The oldest gunshot victim was 73 and the youngest was 15," Holbrook said.
“Today’s isolated, senseless act of violence is extremely upsetting and our thoughts are with everyone impacted. We are grateful for the quick response and continued support of our security team and our partners in law enforcement,” the Columbia Police Department said in a tweet.
Employees inside the mall were told to find shelter in a safe place, "law enforcement officers will come to you as a protected escort. DO NOT leave a store until told to do so by proper authorities," the CPD said in a tweet.