Six wounded in Wash. mall shooting
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-21 18:46

A gunman opened fire inside a busy shopping mall Sunday, wounding at least six people and taking three others hostage in a music store before he surrendered to a SWAT team, authorities said.

Police SWAT team members gather in the parking lot of the Tacoma Mall, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005 in Tacoma, Wash. A man was arrested Sunday afternoon, several hours after apparently walking inside the busy shopping mall where he took three hostages, Tacoma Police officials said. [AP]

Witnesses described seeing a clean-cut man walking backward through the mall, firing a rifle. At least six people were injured, one critically, as shoppers and store clerks scrambled for cover.

Dominick Maldonado, 20, of Tacoma was booked into the Pierce County Jail on six counts of assault and three counts of kidnapping, according to jail records reported by The Seattle Times and the Tacoma News Tribune. He was being held on $450,000 bail.

Court records show he has an extensive juvenile criminal history dating back to 1998. He has been convicted of burglary, theft and possession of burglary tools and he had been ordered not to possess any weapons, the Times reported.

The suspect came out of the Sam Goody music store without a gun and surrendered to the SWAT team, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said. He said police were interviewing the victims and the three hostages — two men and a woman — to determine what happened during the nearly four hours he was inside.

While the suspect was in the music store, employee Joe Hudson was able to pick up a phone call from The Associated Press and say he and others had been taken hostage. He said little more but could be heard telling others that he was talking to the AP.

Susan Serveau said she also called her daughter, Kathy Riggans, 24, a manager at Sam Goody, as soon as she heard about the shooting.

"She was upset and scared. She was crying," Serveau said, standing in a parking lot near the mall. "All she would say was that she was OK."

Authorities said they began getting calls about 12:15 p.m. that shots had been fired inside the Tacoma Mall. The first caller said a gunman "was in the mall, walking along, firing," Fulghum said.

State Patrol and police units from nearby agencies clustered around an entrance at the south end.

Inside, Stacy Wilson, 29, of Bonney Lake, heard a popping noise and turned around.

"I saw the gunman randomly shooting. I ran with a group of women to Victoria's Secret," Wilson said. She said they crouched behind a wall in the store, and when the shooting stopped, an employee ran out and closed a security gate at the front.

Wilson said she heard 15 to 20 shots.

"He was walking backward and shooting. I couldn't see his face," she said. "Everyone was running and screaming."

A man told KING-TV the gunman was smiling as he fired an assault rifle in bursts of four to five shots.

The man said he told his daughter and grandson to run and then hid in the back of a store with his wife and granddaughter. He says they helped a woman who was shot in the leg, bandaging the wound and wrapping her in blankets.

A woman who said she made eye contact with the "very clean-cut" gunman before he opened fire told Northwest Cable News, "When I heard the shooting I thought, 'This is a joke. ... I couldn't believe this was actually happening, that someone would do this."

Betz Dejarnatt, who works at the J.C. Penney store, said workers were herded into dressing rooms and offices, then police took them outside to a parking lot.

Six people were taken to hospitals, most with minor injuries, according to Tacoma Fire Department Deputy Chief Jon Lendosky. One person was in critical condition at Tacoma General Hospital, spokesman Todd Kelley said.