Transcripts For KGO ABC7 News 500PM 20240714

The second floor where we know of at least one person shot. Presumably a second person shot up there as well. You know whats interesting. Now that im really, really thinking about it, the food court a lot of it is on the first floor but then youak the escalator up to the second floor and there are more restaurants. So it is kind of both floors have the food court and they are both right across from the movie theater. So a lot of teenagers on a typical afternoon in the summer would be there right now. School is out. Yeah. Lets go to jim allison, a spokesperson for bart as we said the station near the tanforan mall is closed and we understand another station in oakland. The 12th street station may be closed as well. The latest from jim allison joins us on the phone. Jim are you there. Reporter yes. And you are correct. 12th street station in oakland is closed. We have evacuated. Were holding a train there and bart police are searching for someone who might be connected to this incident on the peninsula. So is there some sense that perhaps someone boarded the bart train and made it all the way to oakland at the 12th street station. Is that the suspicion . That is what bart publicity are check right now. Can you confirm whether someones been apprehended, arrested at the 12th street strags. Caller it is just too early to say right now. The station was closed literally within the last 10 minutes or so. Were letting the police do their work before we get information from them. But it is important for a commuter to know that 12th street station is also closed and evacuated. Jim do you have any idea i know this is a guess on your part. Do you have any idea how long both stations, particularly 12th street. I understand san bruno will be closed some time. But how long the station might be closed for commuters. Caller i wouldnt want to presume how long it takes police to do their work at this point. I think the best thing to do if you use the stations try to find an alternative way to get around senior simp or simply a different bart station. Also how are other stations being affected . Ral quickly. We have about 20 seconds. Caller so the trains are not running through san bruno so they are turning back. The southbound trains are turning back. South San Francisco station and then the northbound trains are obviously only traveling up to in fact im not real sure what the latest plan for stations south of san bruno station. So i would need to check that. Great to come on,appreciate and i know there is a lot of information you are trying to gather as well. Appreciate you coming on and giving us what you have. Thank you. Caller welcome. And give back us to just as soon as you are able to confirm whether someone has been arrested at the 12th strags or somewhere else on the system. Caller absolutely. Thanks jim. Live now. San francisco General Hospital and trauma center. Where we understand and confirm two shooting victims have been taken to be treated for their wounds. Which they received at the tanforan mall in san bruno, some distance away. What you are looking at live on the scene now on the lefthand side of the screen. Now full screen of the tanforan mall. And absolutely enormous Police Response as they lock the mall down. Evacuated the mall. Substitute do shut down the bart station near the mall and trying to figure out if there is anymore danger. One of the tricky things, hundreds of thousands of people in the mall. Gunfire breaks out. At least a couple people wounded. Was there just one gunman. Did they slip away in the crowd. More than one gunman . It is very confuses for the police to figure in this situation. They lock it down and evacuate very deliberately try to make sure that everyone coming out of mall is not connected in any way with what happened. Hard to tell whos the good guy or a bad guy or a bystander. Put your gun away and just blend into the crowd. Yeah. Right now obviously the mall is closed. Also we just want to mention you heard from bart. But we understand that cal train is running normally. We checked in with them. Service at san bruno and the mill bray stations are continuing at this time. San frans, were still checking on that. Because they run buss on el camino which is where the mall is. So there could be ab impact there. We do know the local city street there is surrounding the mall are being taken up byolpolice v you dont want to be in the area if you dont have to be. Because you will be stuck in traffic jam and also getting in the way possibly of police responders. And obviously needless to say there is a holiday week and couple of days until the fourth of jowl this mall is packed with people who are enjoying the holiday week and out of school with parents and friends so this mall is likely quite busy. Two people again taken to San Francisco General Hospital. Abc7 News Reporter is there now with what she can offer in terms of new manifestation. Reporter we rushed over here. But let me hand it over to brent andrew, who obviously knows a lot more than i do. Because hes the Public Relations person for San Francisco general. Tell us brent what you know. We know that there was a shooting incident at tanforan mall. We know that there were four victims. Four gunshot victims. Two of them were brought to us. And two were brought to other hospitals in the area. The two that we have are juvenile. Reporter ages approximately . You know, under 18. 15 to 18 years old. One is in critical condition. And one is serious reporter just almost had an accident here. And someone in serious condition. So one in critical and one in serious condition. Reporter could you tell us the gender . Both male. And they are both being evaluated right now. Obviously one has injuries more serious than the other but they are both gunshot injuries. Reporter do you know anything with respect to if it was just one shot, more than one shot . Multiple shots. Im just not certain yet. And i think were still going through diagnostics to see exactly what internal damage has been done by the gunshots. Reporter i know this is probably something you might not be able to predict. But you said that one is in serious condition. Is that person likely to make it . You know what . I we cant real we cant real speculate on that. A lot depend on the seriousness of the injuries the staff detects and how we go about treating theme. Reporter and San Francisco general of course being one of the best Trauma Centers in the country. So they are in good hands. They are in good hands. You know, we practice for this all the time. We are the cities only level 1 trauma center. So we tend to get a lot of gunshot victims here. So sadly we get a lot of practice at it. And our staff is very good at evaluating and treating gunshot victims here. Could you tell me were both transplanted in one single balance . Or two ambulances . There were two ambulances. Yes. Reporter because we were hearing reports before it was just one ambulance but now you are saying two ambulances. Two ambulances, two victims. Reporter anything else you could shed. Not at this point. Well have updated later as we learn more about the victims conditions and about what were going to do to take care of them. But at this point that is all we have. Reporter what about family members . Are they here too. There are family members here, yes. Reporter okay as you heard brent they are from sf General Hospital. Two male victims were brought in one in serious condition with gunshot wounds. But again near San Francisco General Hospital this is where i would want to be brought, of course, if Something Like that were to happen us to. So were going to keep you informed or also going to show you some video when those shortly, when those two people, juveniles he said, came to the hospital, this is San Francisco General Hospital. Live in San Francisco, leanne mel dez, now back to you. Confirming two were brought here. The other two, a total of four. The other two were taking to other bay area hospitals. Do you know which ones, brent . I dont. Reporter okay. He does not. Again. Thank you. San francisco general a level one trauma center. Two gunshot victims. One in serious condition and one in critical condition. Both juveniles. Both males at San Francisco General Hospital being treated after being shot at tanforan mall just about an hour ago. Right now lets get to our reporter, Lisa Amin Gulezian live at the tanforan mall with the latest. What do you have there . Reporter kristin we are here live at the tanforan mall on the south side. A large police presence. Everyone is here and all eyes are on the mall. In fact i two people that were inside of the mall when all of this erupted. To meet his daughter who well hear from in a bit who was working inside the mall. When you arrived . Then what . Arrived about 3 57. And i walked barnes noble. And as soon as i i wasnt even in the mall not even thirty seconds i heard four pop pop pop pop. And i saw people running, literally just get out of the mall. There is a shooting. There is a shooting. There is a shooting. Get out of mall. Presence at the time. As they were running out i ran in to see what was going on. And then more people were yelling get out, get out. People were just running for their life. Reporter and so when you ran in, what did you see . What were the looks on peoples faces. Oh the look after fear. They looked like they were running a marathon. Elderly and youngsters. And they were running as fast as they could run. Reporter thank you for joining us. We also i work at a store next to barnes nobles, and people were just leisurely shopping and all of a sudden i see this mob of people just start running from the left side of our mall and screaming shooting, shooting, shooting. And the look of people. Their faces just had terror. You have to process it for a second to hear is it really a shooting . And then all of a sudden my dad came in and he told everyone in our store there is an armed, active shooter in the mall. Lock down. So your dad was the one making the announcements . Yes he was the one who was making announcements and telling people to get out of mall. Yeah. What did you guys do . My manager decided to lock down our store. And so we grabbed people who were coming into our store that were coming from the left side of the mall and my manager was pulling people in and right when we got our last person in was a young boy. We locked the doors and turned off the lights. And then what . And afterwards we waited to see if any police would arrive on scene and they did very quickly. And we saw s. W. A. T. Going into the malcolmil, coming in from t right. And they were surveilling the area. Reporter were you hunkered down for a little time. A little bit yeah. A lot of people and customers were panicked so it struck up a little bit of fear. So we were just waiting patiently until we got further instruction. Reporter when did you eventually got out of mall. I got out of the mall maybe about 20 minutes after the shooting. I got escorted along with members from my store. Escorted by the s. W. A. T. Team. Reporter how do you feel knowing all this has happened and were now learning that four people in total have been shot. How does it feel knowing that you were inside of the mall at the time. For one im very grateful that it wasnt our store that got targeted because the shots when i heard them they sounded quite close. And, you know, i was talking to a lady who was a customer in our store and she had lot of fear and panic and, you know, she said what if this was the day that i died . And i told her, you know, i said you got to know where you are going. I have jesus in my life i said. She was asking why is it i was so calm and that was what made me the most calm. And my dad actually ran out of the store after we locked down to help if need be with the s. W. A. T. Team. So it was something i never experienced and hope to not experience again i hope the people got injured are safe and i hope they catch wloehoever wa the suspect. Give us the layout of the mall now. A lot of the activity happened in the food court. Where is that opposed to where we are right now . Is that a Big Food Court . Is that where it seemed the shots were coming from. The food court is opposite where we are right now. Near the cinemark movie theater. On the left side of where we were at on the right side. The food court is quite large. Actually two stories. And so when i heard the shots, i didnt know if they were coming from the food court or from somewhere else in the mall. But yeah, the food court is quite large. So it is quite hard to give an exact description of where it could have possibly begin. Reporter and the noises all seemed to be coming from the food court and people were running from that direction. Right. I assume since people were running from that direction it had to happen in that direction. Yeah. The food court is big and im sure there was a lot of people that were near that area. It is always active. Always busy. Reporter thank you for joining us. Angelica castro, along with her father. Both were inside of the mall when this a all happened. In fact her father was one of the men who started telling people to get out of mall, to evacuate the mall that there was an active shooter on the scene. He went into the mall even though people were rushing out of the mall to try to get people out. He apparently ran in with the s. W. A. T. Team to try to get people to heed the warning and to get to safety. Angelica is telling me that she was inside of her store. She worked at a stop and they turned off the lights and sat in the dark for a little bit of time until they got the okay to get up and get out of mall from police. That is the latest from the south side of the mall. Back to you. Thanks very much. That young woman, angelica, remarkably poised and composed describing very vividly and clearly what she saw there today. And a textbook response from her manager and everyone working in that store to grab the people that were in the store. Shut the gate. Shut the door or turn off the lights and hide. Really a very timely and really smart way to handle were being spoken to. Textbook way to handle the situation. Wait until you are cleared by authorities to move out of the mall and not get into the fray. Did everything right. Right now we want to share some video from inside the mall. Take a look. One of the shooting victims on the ground there being tended to. Hes wounded lying on the floor. People rushing to help him and this was tweeted by jezebel on twitter. We had a lady who talked with ww earlier describing the video. And just outside auntie annes in the food court. And one person at least down and she said there was somebody else as well. We understand four people shot total. One critically wounded. One seriously wounded and then two others. The two most seriously taken to General Hospital. You see that person on the ground moving their arms around. And then here were look at First Respond who are got to a victim outside of the mall and they are taking that person to be cared for. You see them carrying that person in a gurnny, taking them or the treated. If you are someone whos been spot, San Francisco general know exactly what they are doing. They know what they are doing. But two other victims were sent to other hospitals. We dont have details on them yet. But. Presumably not seriously injured. Yes. But the two at sf general. The spokesman described at both being teens. Very sad. Between 15 and 18 years old. And both male. And we are waiting to find out the conditions of the other two people who were taken elsewhere. One thing that should be pointed out we still dont know what the circumstances are. We all have now because of whats happened in this country and many teams over the last number of years you hear at convicti active shooter and think someone on a rampage. We dont know if this is targeted or words exchanged and somebody pulled a gun and started shooting. Weve heard nothing to indicate that it was just someone randomly targeting people. However we havent heard that was not the case either. So we still have to figure out exactly what the circumstances were of this shooting. Was it an argument between people who knew one another. Strangers or something touched it off or just a random attack by someone who lost control. We do know that police are set to hold a News Conference shortly. They are setting up now. They had first 5 15 but obviously it is 5 20 now so its been delayed a bit which happens in these situations as they try to get things in order and be in position where they can talk to us and give us more information. And hopefully answer some of the questions that you have just posed because there are still many unknowns at this time. But we can tell you that the mall is still on lockdown. Question tell you that they have closed down the san bruno bart station. And also the all the way over in oakland, the 12th street station due to a related investigation which may possibly be due to the possibility that the person has escaped via bart to oakland. Obviously police had some indication or some information that someone involved in the shooting had gotten on a bart train and they stopped the trains at the 12th street station. Shut down the station. They had some indication someone involved might be getting off or if not getting off, passing through station. So we still dont know whether anyones been apprehended at the 12th street station. And one of the challenging things for authorities in the situation is there are thousands of people at this mall. And everybody is in a panic. Everybody is scared. And several people have been shot. And we dont know how many shooters were involved. And whether or not the police were always concerned did that shooter slip into the crowd and get out. If they have caught one, maybe there was another. So they are being very deliberate and a pain staking process to clear everyone in the mall and make sure they are not connected and dont let someone slip through their fingers who was right from front of them. It is clear they are not convinced the threat is over from their presence by any means. Right now to abc7 News Reporter Melanie Woodrow at the scene where the News Conference is about to happen. You are at the staging area. Melanie were going let you take over as we wait for this to begin. Reporter kristin, and obviously you are not seeing me right now. Probably looking here at chief ed barberini. So were waiting for the press conference to begin and didnt it in profession prior to it starting so we only know what you have been reporting. And im not in front of the camera because we do want to establish the shot for the moment that chief barberini begins speaking. Well bring you that information and looks like that is going to happen right now. Okay, good afternoon. Thank you for coming out. At 2 56 this afternoon we received a the San Francisco Police Department received a call of shots fired at shops of tanforan, the Shopping Mall just south of us. Officers from our department, San Francisco Police Department and surrounding departments responded. Upon arrival we find two subjects appeared to have suffered gunshot wounds. Both of them subjects have been transplanted to a local hospital. It appears both subjects are fairly stable at this point. Our initial investigation seems to indicate this was not a random active shooter incident where someone was going in there and just shooting at individuals without any type of purpose or intent. We believe at this point we may have two separate shooters and they may have been shooting at each other or sat someone else. So there was some intent or motive for this crime. Were conducting a systematic search of the mall and surrounding parking lots. I wish i had more information to provide at this point but were kind of hip deep in the investigation now and that is pretty much all i have as far as the nuts and bolts. Chief, what is it about the investigation at this point. We have nobody thats been arrest birthday i i cant give you anything more than. Reporter what is it about the investigation that suggests two separate shooters. We found evidence of two shoots at the scene. We heard possible suspects getting on to bart and maybe stopping somewhere in oakland around 12th street. Is that true . I cant corroborate all of that. We do suspect they may have ran in that direction. Woe dont know for sure if they got on a bart train or not. Any description. Two males. Possibly young black males. One was wearing a green colored sweatshirt with a hood. I saw a picture on snap chat earlier showing somebody with a gun walking on the sidewalk. Looked like a rifle almost. Have you seen that picture . Is there a reason to belief that the shooter was walking on the sidewalk at one point . I have not seen that picture. I did hear initial reports that there was somebody armed with a rifle. We have nothing to suggest there was a rifle involved. Our investigation indicates two handguns involved but again were in preliminary stages. We heard age of victims 15 and 18. I dont know the ages. I do know they are young adults. Talk about the police presence. What units out here . Are assisti . It seems like a very large scale response. We are very fortunate in this area to have a large mutually aid response protocol. We activated immediately. Unfortunately this is not foreign us to. We experienced the same type of situation in 2018 at a separate location. So we have protocols in place. The response was very timely. It was immediate. I have no doubt and ill let the fire chief address it on the police and fire side that it probably contributed to saving lives and successful resolution from the Public Safety perspective as far as the response. But were still in the middle of it. And that response continues where the search is being conducted both of the mall which is a large building, as you can imagine and the surround parking lotting is being conducted in teams of Police Officers all over the county here. So were appreciative of that but everything is working. The search, is it focused here and in oakland . We have a very close relationship with the bart Police Department. And colocated with their personal personnel and working with them. They have been helpful conducting searches on the bart trains. Weve secured the bart station here in san bruno. So we know that is clear and bart is helping with a follow up investigation with what trains may have come through in the time period. Any surveillance video. Should people out there be looking for . Is there anything they can look for to help you out . We dont have i wish we had more. Were still reviewing surveillance video. There will be a press release out soon. With that were hoping to have some type of photo to distribute to the public that will help us. But right now were our immediate goal is to locate the subjects. Make sure that everybody is safe. There is no immediate threat were aware of right now but we need to locate these two subjects and and take them into custody. Which were confident were going to be able to do. And im hoping on the video reviewed that well photos to share with you. Two suspects you are looking for. Two victims taken to sf General Hospital and we also heard reports of other victims to other hospitals. Can you confirm this numbers. Ill like the fire chief address those. My unctioning is we have two victims with gunshot wounds. That were true victims of a shooting. There may be two additional victims that may have tripped and fell or suffered other injury that i do not believe were transported to a hospital were simply treated and released at the scene. As far as suspects go, we believe we have two. But again there is a preliminary investigation and we frankly it is too early to spectacular on who or how many people are involved so were leaving all door open there. Sounds like the shooters have a total disregard for anybody in the mall. Any shooting is a tragic, silly, stupid event, right . When you do it in a Shopping Mall or any area where there is a lot of people like you said shows a true disregard. And it is a senseless act. And it is a shame that we have to deal with these types of things. Did the victims make any statements as they were being taken to the hospital that would be helpful in terms of finding the suspect. We have investigates with the victims at the hospital now and i have not been updated. We also have as you can imagine several witnesses that investigators are but no obtaining statements. And you said you dont think this is random. What leads you to believe that . Why do you think these individuals shot at the victim. When i say it is not random. I dont believe there was an active shooter where somebody went in there just firing aimlessly or shooting at victims in a random manner. I believe that there was some type of motoive or intent where the person shooting knew what or who they were shooting at and had a specific intent. Rather than active shooter scenes wevene in other areas. A live prefecture icture of street bart station which was closed for a time. 12th street station was closed some time but it is now just been reopened and cleared. And we should mention the chief also mentioned they have not arrested anybody yet. But looking for two people apparently. Lets will be to the san bruno chief. Say a quick prayer for the safety of everybody involved. Both the people in the mall going on and enjoying their daily life and my personnel who are responding. All the Public Safety folks. After that, it is a logistical challenge. As the large area. Were a modest sized city and department. Weve done a great deal of training and that paid off in this instance. Our people responded exceptionally as they have in the past. So the training has paid off but as the scary feeling when you first get that call. And until you are on scene and can wrap your arms around it. That unknown contributes to that apprehension. Lot of people arent really familiar with san bruno if they are another town but your mall here is set up right next to the bart station. And that is why it may have been easy for someone to get on board bart. Yeah and it is not uncommon. Our Police Station is located close to the station as well. And when we thefts or other crimes at the mall it is not uncommon for these people the go to bart. So we know that is an avenue for them. It is not uncommon for those types of things to happen with your more day to day type of criminal activity. Can we talk with the fire chief. Would you tell us about the victims and what they are doing and how . Responded at the request of p. D. For a shooter. Updated information included multiple victims. Ultimately Additional Resources were asked. We had a second alarm and declared a mci, a mass casualty incident. A total of four ambulances were dispatched