carlballou /iStockBy Catherine Thorbecke, ABC News
(BRAINTREE, Ma) — A 15-year-old girl was injured in a shooting at the South Shore Plaza mall in Braintree, Massachusetts, officials said.
Braintree police said she suffered non-life threatening injuries, and two male suspects were taken into custody in relation to the shooting, which took place at about 4:45 p.m.
After initially saying they were responding to an “active shooter,” the Braintree Police Department said it now believes it was a targeted shooting.
Special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assisted Braintree police in the response to the scene.
The Braintree Police Department said via Twitter that the stores were put under lockdown. In a follow-up tweet, the agency said the suspect or suspects were “believed to have fled the mall on foot” and urged neighbors to shelter in place and report suspicious activity.
The shelter-in-place orders were lifted after the two suspects were taken into custody.
A witness inside the mall described the chaos to Boston ABC affiliate WCVB, saying he heard “six gunshots.”
“Everything was acting normal, day to day, I was on the upstairs location near Sears, as I was walking toward Sears, I was on the second level I saw people start going to the railing, looking down to the first floor and then we just heard six gunshots one after another, then it went silent,” he said. “I didn’t see any shooter or anything like that. And then it all became chaos, the mall, everybody trying to find an exit.”
Braintree is located about 25 minutes south of downtown Boston.
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