The police are searching for a person who shot and killed a pregnant woman and injured six others at a Spirit Halloween in Northern California on Friday evening, the local authorities said.
The shooting, which has rattled community members, occurred as shoppers clamored for last-minute costumes on the night before Halloween. A shooter opened fire inside the holiday store at the Solano Town Center mall in Fairfield, Calif.
When police officers arrived they found seven victims with gunshot wounds, the authorities said.
Constance Hages, 31, died from her injuries, Fairfield police said in a statement on Saturday afternoon. She was pregnant, her family told detectives.
Three other victims, including two teenagers, remain in critical condition. An additional victim is in critical but stable condition, according to police. Two other victims were treated for gunshot wounds and have since been released from the hospital.
Janet Jacobo, 36, was shopping for a costume with her three sons, ages 6, 11 and 13, on Friday evening when she heard noises she believed to be gunshots, she said in a phone interview on Saturday.
Ms. Jacobo, who lives in Fairfield, Calif., told her children to run and began searching for an exit, she said. The doors between the mall’s interior and the Halloween store were already closed for the evening she said, adding that another shopper was rallying people to break the gate open so they could get out of the store.
She fled, running alongside her elder sons and carrying her youngest child who she said was “terrified.” As they ran, she said she heard a woman scream.
The Fairfield police did not offer any information about the identity of the victims or the potential suspect in what it called a “heartbreaking incident.” Police officials declined to answer additional questions when reached for comment, but said the police were working to confirm new details about the shooting.
“This is still a very active crime scene,” the statement said. “Detectives are speaking with witnesses and diligently working to identify the suspect responsible for this horrific shooting.”
The shooting appeared to have “stemmed from a targeted incident involving one suspect inside the Spirit Halloween store,” Fairfield police said in a statement on Saturday, adding that they were encouraging people in the area to “remain vigilant, look out for one another, and report any suspicious activity.”
Ms. Jacobo, who witnessed the shooting with her children, said she no longer plans to hand out candy this evening. She has tried to calm her six-year-old son by telling him the shooting was just a “scary show at the Halloween store.”
There was also a shooting at a Spirit Halloween store in Madison Heights, Mich., earlier on Friday. A 21-year-old man shot another 21-year-old man multiple times in a “brief altercation” at the holiday store in the Detroit suburbs, Madison Heights police said in a statement.
The victim, who lived in Detroit, was taken to a hospital with serious injuries and later died. The two men were acquainted, the police said in the statement. The police declined to answer further questions about the episode. The suspect in the Michigan shooting is in custody.
The post Shooting at Spirit Halloween in California Leaves at Least One Dead appeared first on New York Times.
