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Two People Shot At Fashion Place Mall In Murray

Murray police Detective and PIO Ken Bass
Erik Neumann / KUER
Police are searching for three suspects in a shooting Sunday that wounded two people at Fashion Place Mall in Murray. Murray police Officer Ken Bass, above, speaks with reporters after the shooting.

Two people were shot Sunday afternoon outside Fashion Place Mallin Murray, as law enforcement launched a manhunt in search of three suspects, police said.

Police are investigating the shooting as possibly gang-related, although the identities of the three suspects are not known, Officer Kenney Bass said. He said he's never heard of a shooting like this happening in Murray before.

Bass said that it was not known whether the shooting was a targeted attack but there did not appear to be a larger threat to the public. Police set up a perimeter to contain the suspects. A reverse 911 notice was sent by text message notifying residents to shelter in place.

The two victims, a man and a woman both in their 20s, were transported to nearby Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Bass said. The man is in critical condition while the woman has been released. Police have not released their identities.

Murray police responded around 1:32 p.m. to the shooting that occurred outside the southeast corner of the mall, but the three suspects had already fled, Bass said. Rep. Carol Moss, D-Holladay, tweeted at 1:52 p.m. that she had just "evacuated from the mall. Active Shooter. Heard that two people shot."

Catrina Ramos and her daughter Deja Cruz
Credit Erik Neumann / KUER
Catrina Ramos and her daughter Deja Cruz were evacuated from Fashion Place Mall following a shooting there Sunday afternoon.

Catrina Ramos said she was with her four children in Claire’s getting her daughter's ears pierced when she heard a "pop" sound. 

“All of a sudden we start looking around from the back end, which I believe is Dillard’s, all of a sudden we just see people running. They just start running and yelling ‘Get out of the mall! Hurry!’ People thought it was a fire,” she said. “You just see this crowd of people pushing each other, running out, trying to find an exit.”

It was a chaotic scene as Ramos went to her car with her children, and drove home past sirens. Like others at the mall she posted on social media about the shooting, but then she returned to the mall to talk to reporters.

“People running to their cars, almost hitting each other to try to get out of the parking lot,” she said. “You never figure that you’re going to be there when that’s happening.”

For people at the mall who were separated by the shooting police have set up a reunification post at the Taco Bell restaurant near the mall at 6111 South State St. in Murray.

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