Gunshots rang out inside Park Place mall during a busy shopping day Sunday, injuring three people — including a shopper — and causing thousands inside to bolt for the exits.
The midafternoon incident began when two men inside the Dillard's department store got into an argument and one pulled a handgun, police said. That led to a struggle over the gun in which both men were shot, and a bystander apparently was grazed by a bullet.
The incident sent mall customers, who were visiting stores or catching movie matinees, pouring out into the parking lots and leaving in their cars by the dozens.
Witnesses inside Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway, reported hearing three gunshots near the food court entrance to Dillard's at about 3:10 p.m. Sunday. Some said the noises sounded more like balloons popping, but they soon realized the sounds were, in fact, gunfire.
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The shooting was considered a "random" incident because the men involved had passed each other by chance inside the store and got into a confrontation, said Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
Police said the shooting appeared to be gang-related.
They said the two men were initially detained by off-duty law enforcement officers.
Late Sunday night, police said they had charged Vicente Alcaraz, 20, with aggravated assault; theft, because the gun involved was stolen; and attempted robbery. The second man involved in the fight was not charged.
Police still had not identified the bystander or the nature of the wounds. None of the injuries was life-threatening, however.
Visitors in the mall had mixed impressions of how shoppers reacted to the echoes of gunfire, a sound rarely heard in Tucson's bustling public places. Some said shoppers left in an orderly manner after being told the mall was being evacuated, while others said some customers panicked.
But the evacuation resulted in jammed parking lot exits and briefly clogged traffic.
Hope Reichlein, a manager at the food court's Jamba Juice, said she ran over to the Dillard's entrance after the shooting to see if she could offer medical assistance. But before she thought it was safe, she and her co-workers hit the floor.
"An employee said, 'There are gunshots!' and pulled us all to the ground," said Reichlein, who was working yards away from the west-side Dillard's entrance, where the shooting took place.
Some interviewed on Sunday afternoon had been watching movies in the mall's theaters when they heard the shots or calls for evacuation.
Albert Angevine, 79, said he was riding down the escalator into the Century Theatres lobby when several people ran the opposite way and warned others to turn around. The lobby opens up into the food court, but it's located diagonally across from the Dillard's entrance.
Joe Stephens, 30, said he was waiting in line to buy movie tickets when he heard the shots.
"I just remember hearing people say, 'There's a guy with a gun,' " he said, recollecting events while standing in the parking lot outside Dillard's.
Another man, who was seen wearing a black football jersey, was detained in the parking lot just south of Dillard's at about 4 p.m. There was no indication that he was involved in the shooting, but Robinson said he was detained after trying to hide a gun underneath a vehicle.
Tiana Velez, an employee of the Arizona Daily Star who was inside Dillard's during the shooting, said there was "a lot of confusion" inside both the store and the mall. She noted that many shoppers initially believed there was a bomb scare.
"A lot of people just didn't know what was going on," Velez said — including mall store employees, many of whom were locking their front doors to keep shoppers safe inside and possible intruders out.
Park Place has an emergency plan that was put into place, said Jim Heilmann, the mall's senior general manager, but he wouldn't discuss specifics. He said the decision to evacuate the mall was made by Tucson police.
Shopping mall shootings appear to be uncomfortably common in the United States. Within the last year, fatal shootings at shopping centers have been recorded in Utah, Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina and Indiana.
And in Tucson in June 2000, police fatally shot a man after he grabbed a woman and held her hostage in the Park Place Dillard's.
Sunday's incident seemed to bring dozens of police to the mall, including Tucson Police Chief Richard Miranda. A spokesman said he was in the area at the time of the shooting.
Police were reviewing surveillance tapes Sunday evening, and they said they had recovered at least two shell casings inside the store.
Park Place reopened shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday, although Dillard's remained closed, Robinson said.
On StarNet: Find this story online to watch a slide show and submit your own photos from the shooting at azstarnet.com/crime
