People are evacuated after reports of shots fired at the Galleria at Crystal Run, Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017, in Middletown, N.Y. (Allyse Pulliam/Times Herald-Record via AP)
Republished November 26, 2017 - 7:28 PM
Original Publication Date November 26, 2017 - 2:06 PM
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. - A crowded mall in New York's Hudson Valley was evacuated Sunday after a man shot a gun into the floor, causing minor injuries to two bystanders, police said.
It wasn't clear whether the gunfire shortly after 3 p.m. at the Galleria at Crystal Run in Middletown was accidental. Police were seeking the man with the gun.
"At this time it appears that a male wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and grey pants discharged one round from a handgun into the floor on the second level of the mall in front of the American Eagle store," Chief Robert Hertman of the Wallkill Police Department said at a briefing outside the mall.
Hertman said the two people were being treated for minor lacerations. He said it was unclear how they were injured.
Video posted on social media showed armed police in tactical gear running down a corridor of the mall while shoppers ran in the other direction.
Leighton Peterson was grabbing a pre-movie bite to eat in the mall's food court around 3:20 when suddenly, he heard alarms, "and all of the employees were telling everybody to get to the exits and evacuate," he told The Associated Press.
As people made orderly progress toward the exits, Peterson thought it might be a fire drill until he heard a worried-looking mall worker mention a shooting, he recalled.
Outside, holiday shoppers lingered at first to see whether there might be an all-clear and reopening. But before long, "it became pretty clear that there was an actual situation happening, so then people started leaving en masse," in a bumper-to-bumper stream out of the packed parking lot, said Peterson, 32, a video editor.
The Galleria mall is about 70 miles north of midtown Manhattan. It also was evacuated during the holiday shopping rush in December 2008, when an odour of gas at a department store forced the shopping centre to close early on a Thursday evening.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017