9-Year-Old Girl Shot After Gunman Opens Fire In California Mall
A Southern California shoe store owner opened fire at shoplifters and accidentally shot a 9-year-old girl amidst the chaos.
The SacBee reports that Marqel Cockrell, 20, was arrested after fleeing to Nevada. He fired shots while he was chasing alleged shoplifters out of a store on Tuesday evening at the Mall of Victor Valley in the California city of Victorville.
The owner of a Southern California shoe store was arrested in Clark County Tuesday night after shooting a child at a mall in Victorville. Police say the man was firing at shoplifters but the shots instead hit the victim. FOX5’s @Feven_Kay reports.
DETAILS: https://t.co/qR6iaR4JtX pic.twitter.com/jj38c3blzI— FOX5 Las Vegas (@FOX5Vegas) April 13, 2022
Per police reports he“fired multiple shots at the shoplifters,” Victorville police said in a statement. “Cockrell’s shots missed the shoplifters and instead hit the 9-year-old female victim”
RELATED: Six People Killed And 10 Injured In Mass Shooting At Downtown Sacramento
Shoplifters unharmed, young girl shot
Officers who responded to the calls of gunfire found the girl suffering from a gunshot wound at 6:30 p.m., the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. The unidentified child was then airlifted to a hospital in stable condition. Her family reports that she was hit three times in her arm, but is recovering.
“We were scared. We were just waiting for someone to get us out,” said Silemyr Valle, said a mall worker.
The shooter, Cockrell, is the co-owner of the shoe store Sole Addicts He was later arrested in his car at 9 p.m. in Clark County, Nevada by the Nevada High Patrol. He is currently being held on $1 million bail at the Clark County Detention Center “on an extraditable warrant, for attempted murder.”
Shootings are becoming a frequent occurrence across the US
Just yesterday we reported that 62-year-old Frank R. James was identified as the gunman who was responsible for the mass shooting in a Manhattan-bound N train at the 36th Street station. As previously reported, the shooting took place around 8:30 a.m. during the morning rush hour. The suspect reportedly fired his weapon 33 times, injuring 10 people, and threw a smoke canister in the train car.
NYPD executives join City and State Officials to discuss the earlier shooting incident in Brooklyn. https://t.co/4l10kjm5OK
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) April 12, 2022
Around 5 p.m., officers located a U-haul cargo van on Kings Highway in Brooklyn after finding the rental key at the scene. They also recovered a 9-mm handgun, credit card, hatchet, gasoline, and three extended magazines as reported by Insider. James was identified as a person of interest after the credit card found at the scene was used to purchase the U-haul rental.
James was apprehended earlier this morning.