Dec. 25 (UPI) — Five people have been arrested in the shooting at the Mall of America in Minnesota that killed a 19-year-old man.
Taken into custody were three 17-year-old boys and two 18-year-old men, Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said at a Christmas Eve news conference.
All five at this point will be charged with second-degree murder, Hodges said.
One man is believed to have pulled the trigger in the shooting Friday, but police are investigating if there was another shooter who the believe already is in custody.
Two potential suspects initially were identified in the killing at Nordstrom, and a search warrant was executed at a building on Saturday morning.
“We know the how, and the where, we know the what and we know the who, but we don’t know the why this happened, and we don’t know the why because flat out just aren’t cooperating and people don’t want to talk,” Hodges said.
A longstanding feud appears to have been behind the shooting, which followed an altercation in Nordstrom and sparked a lockdown of the mall Friday evening, Hodges said.
It’s the first fatal shooting at the mall, which is the largest in the nation. A domestic-related stabbing occurred there in 1999.
“So, you come to Bloomington and think you’re going to kill people and get away with it? No, we’re not playing that here. You’re going to jail, and we’re going to make sure that anybody else that helped these folks are going to go to jail, too,” Hodges said during the news conference.
Around 7:50 p.m., a Bloomington Police officer working at a nearby store initially responded to the sounds of gunshots coming from the first floor of Nordstrom.
The entire incident lasted around 30 seconds, according to police.
The mall reopened Saturday morning, but Nordstrom remained closed.
