Authorities revealed new details Monday on the weekend mall shooting in Greenwood, Indiana, including the identities of the gunman, three victims and the legally armed bystander who fatally shot the gunman.
The shooting rampage took place at the Greenwood Park Mall around 6 p.m. Sunday. Multiple people called 911 to report an active shooter. Three people died and two were injured as a result of the shooting. Greenwood is 15 miles south of Indianapolis.
The gunman was identified as Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, who police said prepared for the shooting for a little over an hour in a bathroom before he emerged with a rifle, Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said.
Indiana Mall Shooting Video
The legally armed bystander who ended up shooting the gunman was identified as Elisjsha Dicken, 22, of Seymour, Indiana. Dicken was able to neutralize the gunman within two minutes after the gunman had already fired 24 rounds from his rifle. Dicken fired 10 shots from his Glock handgun.
“He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun — was very proficient in that, very tactically sound and as he moved to close in on the suspect he was also motioning for people to exit behind him,” Ison said. “Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly within the first two minutes of the shooting.”
Indiana Greenwood Park Mall Video
Sapirman, the gunman, had two rifles, a Glock pistol and more than 100 rounds of ammunition with him at the time of the shooting, but only used an AR 15-style rifle, Ison said.
The AR 15-style rifle was legally purchased on March 8 in Greenwood, the police chief said. The second rifle was purchased March 9, 2021, from a Greenwood gun store.
Mall surveillance video showed Sapirman entering the mall from the food court around 5 p.m. Sunday and going directly to the restroom located in the food court where he stayed for a little over an hour before emerging holding a rifle, Ison said.
Sapirman first shot Gomez, then pointed his rifle into the food court, where he fatally shot the Pinedas, who were eating dinner at the time of the shooting, Ison said.
Indiana Mall Shooting Video
The shooter kept firing into the food court, striking a 22-year-old woman in the leg. A 12-year-old girl — identified by her mother, Alison Dick, as Bella — was hit with a bullet fragment that ricocheted off of a wall, Ison said.
Bella was with her grandmother and two of her sisters at the food court when they heard a loud noise, Dick said in a Facebook Live video.
“Bella and one sister ran out of the mall and my mom and other daughter crawled into a shoe store and hid in the back room,” Dick told CNN in a text message. While running, Bella felt “something like a stab in her back,” Dick said in the Facebook Live video.
Two minutes into the melee, the shooter was confronted by what police described as a “good Samaritan” who was shopping with his girlfriend. With a Glock handgun in his possession, Dicken shot at the gunman, causing him to retreat back into restroom before falling to the ground.
Dicken’s attorney, Guy A. Relford, said in a statement to CNN that his client is “a true American hero who saved countless lives during a horrific event that could have been so much worse if not for Eli’s courage, preparedness and willingness to protect others.”
The Greenwood Police Department has trained for a mass shooting scenario and has performed “multiple mall exercises” to prepare for active shooter situations, the police chief said.
Indiana Mall Shooting Video
Currently, there is no footage of Indiana Mall Shooting, shared or posted by any eye witness.
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