ANN ARBOR – Police continue to search for the person who opened fire Friday afternoon inside Briarwood Mall.
Original Story: Ann Arbor police investigate report of shots fired at Briarwood Mall
Police said they do not believe the shooting was random.
“We all thought that there was a shooter loose in the mall,” said Grace Bowlby. “So we weren’t sure if we were going to have to make a run for it and go out the back door through the tunnels.”
Bowlby, a student at Schoolcraft College, was working her job at Ann Taylor when someone opened fire Friday at the Von Maur store at Briarwood Mall.
“We didn’t know if we were going to have to leave or how long we were going to have to stay in place,” Bowlby said. “It was just, it was very nerve racking. We didn’t know what was going on.”
She said she was in a restroom when she heard commotion outside the door -- it was her co-workers and a customer barricading the door.
”They were blocking off the doors back there and they’re like, ‘Don’t panic, but we think that there’s an emergency going on,’” Bowlby recalled.
Police said at about 3 p.m., a gunman shot a 19-year-old in the arm. He was taken to a hospital to be treated and is expected to be OK.
Employees and customers were terrified as police secured the mall.
“Our loss prevention guy ended up telling us to go and hide in the very back office, which is like a really really tiny room -- like six feet by six feet, like a closet, basically,” Bowlby said. “We were all sitting on the floor and on the desk in there in the pitch black darkness, and I think at that point was when I started getting really anxious, when we moved into that back room and shut off all the lights and they told us to be quiet.”
Police are still looking for the suspected gunman. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ann Arbor Police Department at 734-794-6920 or its tip line at 734-996-8199.
More: Metro Detroit Crime News