A 19-year-old gunshot victim was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Providence police, who say they are still searching for the person or persons responsible, and the mall has been evacuated.
A 19-year-old man was shot in the garage at the Providence Place mall on Monday afternoon, police said.
"This was not an active shooter situation and the victim appears to have been targeted," said Lindsay Lague, a Providence police spokesperson, in a news release.
The victim was taken to Rhode Island Hospital in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries, said Providence Police Chief Hugh Clement at a 7:20 p.m. news conference. The police are still searching for the person or persons responsible for the shooting, he said, and no arrests have been made at this time.
Public Safety Commissioner Steven Paré said the shooting took place in the second-floor parking garage, outside the Nordstrom department store.
A Journal employee witnessed a man being wheeled out of the mall on a stretcher, awake and alert.
Police learned of the incident at 4:45 p.m. The mall was "immediately put into lockdown" and evacuated, the news release said, as police searched for suspects.
Just before 6 p.m., a police officer led a young male with ripped jeans, soiled with rust-colored stains, out of the entrance of the mall by Panera bread, and into a police vehicle, as a woman shouted at police about getting a lawyer. It was not clear whether he was being detained in relation to the shooting.
Earlier, at about 5 p.m., a Providence Journal reporter witnessed two police officers on the first level of the mall with guns drawn, warning people to get out of the mall.
The officers later holstered their guns.
Police directed some mall patrons to the garage to retrieve their cars. Some people said they were anxious as word spread that police had been running through the mall with guns drawn at reports of a shooting.
Police were asking patrons of the Dunkin Donuts Center to use Francis Street to access their vehicles.
Lisa Williams of Pawtucket and two friends were pulling into the Providence Place mall garage beside Nordstroms when they saw police officers running past their car with their guns drawn. Police cruisers were pulling up behind them, and more officers were running past toward the store, she said.
They didn’t know what had happened, but heard an announcement from the mall that sounded like a “state of emergency” and were told to get out.
Up in the cinema, watching “The Greatest Showman,” Amy Gibson and Shayna Levine were startled when the the house lights suddenly came on. There was an announcement about a fire alarm, but as they and others in the audience filed out of the theater, they didn’t smell smoke.
It wasn’t until they reached the ground floor that they heard in the crowd that someone had been shot.
— With reports from Amanda Milkovits