Transcripts For KPIX KPIX 5 News At 530PM 20240714

That were on board the train were evacuated. Meanwhile all trains and not stopping or being allowed to even go through the 12th street line, that includes the antioch line, the Richmond Millbrae line, and the richmond warm springs line. Of course 25,000 people use that bart from sf to oakland. We have a weekend holiday coming up and as you can imagine as it is about 5 30 right now, traffic is going to really start becoming a mess if it hasnt already become one. To check in with betty use at the tanforan mall and she has found the witnesses up. Ready . Reporter i am with michelle and her son, they just exited at the century theaters, they were in the middle of watching spiderman you were telling me that you started to get notices on your phone first, what happened . My husband was trying to call me. Reporter how did you learn of all this Police Activity and that the shooting . Going down into the lobby and they werent letting anybody leave. Reporter could you hear anything from the theater . No, no. Reporter how did all of these moviegoers, including yourself get out of there . Peoples are getting sprinkling out because theyre getting notifications on their phones and then we said to stuck here let us try to go back inside to watch the rest of the movie and then they turned it off and all the Police Officers were escorting everybody out. Reporter how are both of you doing right now i know your son was shaken up earlier . Is a sad thing we try to go to Movie Theater to watch a moving movie and there is a shooting, we is that the food court and we had eaten there just before he went to go see a movie. It is upsetting. From the inside you also saw a heavy Police Presence, swat officers . Once they turn the movie off they were escorting everybody out and doing sweeps and all the theaters just to make sure no one was in there. Reporter thank you for taking to describe what happened and we are glad both of you are okay. Thank you. Reporter we just spoke to michelle and her son. And that is something we have heard from several people today. Just trying to figure out and amidst all of the activity what happened and thankfully they were able to evacuate safely. And again out here right now, the Police Presence has not downsized at all. We are still seeing a lot of officers throughout the property and several street do remain closed. Will bring you more updates as soon as we get them out here. I think we can all emphasize with that family, retreading a movie with your kid these days and that is not guaranteed safer. We will move on. We are getting some information now from bart, are they confirming the 12th street is reopened . We have seen on twitter that the 12th street station in oakland that was closed down, apparently as police tried to search for a possible shooting suspect unclear if that is related to what is happening on the peninsula. But the 12th street bart station as we have been mentioning is a main thoroughfare for both bart trains when you are going to that area it is now reopened. But again you still see the very large Police Presence surrounding that area right now. We do have any information of any suspects being taken by bart police as they enter the station or search through the trains. But a number of passengers who were coming off the stop trains reported to us that police were asking if they had heard anything if they had seen anything and the assumption wasnt that it was somehow connected to what was going on at tanforan mall although that has not been confirmed by bart or San Bruno Police. That is a life picture now looking down at the situation there, not completely settled, but certainly trains are moving and that will impact thousands of people, as you mentioned earlier because that particular station is a transfer station too. On the line and it affects antioch line to richmond, millbrae, warm springs, all of those sections that go out on the bart spurs were impacted for a rob. There is a press conference going on for the Police Department. We did a search just to confirm that. But, i would love to know the whereabouts of her everybody is because that would make my life a lot easier but i cannot give you that. How do you know there is no threat . We believe that those who were involved in the incident have fled the area and are hiding from us rather than posing a another safety threat, given their initial actions we do not think this was a random act, where they were just seeking victims randomly. We think it was permissible. How many people are you searching for . We went through all of that, we just do the whole briefing to everybody. So, we are not really sure. But, we are conducting a systematic search for suspects. Can you tell me, i apologize for arriving late, can you tell me what happened, and what you know so far . This is the fire chief here. Reporter thank you. Just before 4 00 this afternoon we got reports of shots being fired at the mall. The San Bruno Police department and medially responded and found two victims that had suffered apparent gunshot wounds. They have since been transported to a local hospital and are in stable condition. I can let the fire chief talk more about the year medical if youre interested. Does not appear this was an active shooting or a random kind of instance were somebody went in there and randomly started shooting at people. We believe there were two or more persons actually shooting and they were shooting at other people. With some time of an subtype of intent or purpose so that is where were at right now. Were conducting a search of the mall, the surrounding parking lots and were also working closely with bart. Reporter those two people with a shooting at each other or teamed up going after other people . We do not know that. They very well may have been shooting at each other as you can imagine it is a chaotic scene and will have to map out the scene to see exactly what their intent was. And who their intended targets were, we do believe their intended targets rather than being a random act of violence. Reporter do you have any idea what kind of firearms they were using . Just handguns. There was a report that there was a rifle involved initially, we have found nothing to cooperate that. Everything we have found indicates that there were handguns. Reporter witnesses said they were dozens of people fleeing, it sounds like only two people injured is a pretty good outcome. It is never a good outcome in every out any type of circumstance like this and it is a shame we have to respond to these types of instances. But as the fire chief mentioned earlier we do a great deal of training as a Public Safety entity, not just police or fire but we bring in all the disciplines are most recent training was a little over a week ago and unfortunately we have to train for these circumstances and the trading paid off today. The timeliness of our response the way the police and fire worked together that we get medical and personnel to the victims and provide them with some protection, it attributed to the fact that the casualties were relatively minimal and it sounds like hopefully those two individuals will come out of this okay. Reporter do you think the suspects were gone by the time you got here . Or was your approach that they were still in there and can still be shooting . We approach every scenario as they are still in there. We always use extreme caution and primarily to protect the public and our selves. However, they very well could be a likelihood that one or more of the subjects may have left wouldve been an initial perimeter based on the time before we get the call. These things happen any matter of seconds so one or more of the folks involved could have left the mall before we even arrived even though we are very, very close and that is why we are working close with our partners like bart to review all kinds of footage as you can imagine and looking at all types of evidence to see if we can determine 1 who was involved in two who they were. Reporter there are cameras all over the mall . We are looking at footage. Can you elaborate on the idea that this was not random, what led you to believe that . It is way too premature to speculate on that. Just based on the scene our officers believe that there was some type of intent behind this. We do not know what the motive for the intent was, were not sure if that is something that will be delved out as we move forward. But, we never know what we are walking into. And given todays environment, we always have the active shooter, random shooter type scenario in the back of our minds and, a lot of us probably had that rolling into this but it looked like it was something a little bit different than that. One more thing about the motive, is because only two people were shot that you think a few people were targeted . I think the manner in which the rounds were fired, the location of where the two individuals were, basically the physical setup of the scene is what leads our investigators now to believe that it wasnt just somebody walking through and arbitrarily firing rounds. Reporter thereafter somebody . And may not have been a preplanned event, couldve just had something that fired up there inside the mall, who knows. That is something we will work to find out. Were not random, the community essay. There is no indication that somebody walk through the mall and wrap arbitrarily started firing shots. Can you tell us more about the victims . Certainly. San bruno responded to a possible shooter for the Police Department two alarms responded. And we called. Upon arrival firefighters worked with Police Officers will be called rescue group task forces that have formed up at the Police Department. Personnel went inside and removed two gunshot victims who are gunshots to their lower extremities. Were removed from the building and transported by an ambulance to s. F. General, i do not know any information on whether they were stable, i do not have any information on where they are now. Two other victims were treated. I do not know the issue, somehow related but they were not injured critically. They were treated, examined and signed releases and they are free to go now. Reporter no fatalities . At this point now. Reporter we were able to go inside . I did not go inside. I can comment on obviously, it is a chaotic scene. But our Police Officers and firefighters are trained to do this. Get inside, find and locate the victims and remove them. So we are happy about that response and we appreciate, we response from our neighbors at South San Francisco central county fire, daly city all the way up to the county Additional Resources responded on the fireside. Same thing i asked the chief. There were dozens, hundreds of people in there and only two people injured and two more with minor ones . We are lucky. Hopefully that is it, we still have resources on scene in case we locate other victims, their big could be employees with trauma related so we will keep people here as the pd continues to do their search will be a very happy that this is obviously the best possible outcome. Reporter tommy her name again . Dave cresta, fire chief, san bruno. Simon perez, thank you so much. You have been watching simon perez get some information for us from san bruno obligors fire chief and police chief in attendance to give out some info. What we know for sure is according to the police chief, this was not a random shooting that happened at the tanforan mall just before 4 00. He believes that the two victims who were hit by gunfire were targeted by two or more shooters in his words. They are not sure at this point. Those two individuals who are struck by gunfire are in stable condition and being treated at the hospital right now. The fire chief also mentioned there were two other people that were examined that may have incurred an injury although they were not life threatening. Those people have been treated and released. They believe just from the nature of how this went down that it may have been something that escalated at the mall itself. And, escalated into gunfire, or may have been something that somebody was pursuing somebody else but was not a random shooter. The classic walk through the mall and fire indiscriminately type of situation. More targeted which would allow some speculation that these people all knew each other and there was a beef going on. Just to reiterate what the police chief said a couple of times. There is no threat right now, they believe the suspects, they have not apprehended the suspects but they believe they are somewhere hiding from police but they do not believe there is a threat to the public right now and again this was a targeted attack. Not the active, random shooter that was initially feared. Let us get down to the live news desk. Veronica has been monitoring social media for us. Reporter as you know i am down here at the live news desk ive been watching social media posts coming in from tanforan mall looking at facebook and twitter. We are also inviting you to share your pictures. This just came in from a stringer. It seems as though there were two victims brought, excuse me, s. F. General. This is the video coming into the newsroom. We are hearing that those victims are in stable conditions. Both suffering from gunshot was to the lower extremities ranging in age from 1518. We heard there were four victims total and two have been released. Those two are still at San Francisco general, we are looking at that. More video coming in from twitter and facebook. Wanted to show you what i found on twitter and then communicating. Here is what i am hearing, folks have been evacuating the mall, there still looking for other suspects. He saw ems carrying people out of the mall and that he sent me this photo which appears as though there was simply being taken into custody. He saw a steady stream of people being evacuated from the Movie Theaters. This is from his vantage point. He is right next to the sears, right outside the Movie Theater. He said police have been on the scene and have been evacuating people and that there are still people inside the Movie Theater. He says that he has been standing in the parking lot and this is a photo of somebody being taken into custody. He also said that he had witnessed a swat team going around asking people to pop their trunks as they of course continue their investigation. There you see the swat team on the scene. So like i was saying. It has, the excitement has died down a little. There are still folks being held inside the Movie Theater that are slowly being evacuated outside into the sears parking lots. And has been a very crazy day there at tanforan mall. We see lots of photos, lots of videos out on social media, weve been scouring twitter and facebook, citizen, and is asking to share whatever you find with us. You can tweet us at kpix or hit us on our facebook page. I will continue to look at the internet and get back to you guys. Our loyal viewers are so great about sending in pictures and giving us in their accounts of what is happening. We just want to reiterate what the latest News Conference was with the San Bruno Police and the Fire Department they said they do not believe there is an active threat right now. They believe that they do not have the suspects in custody but they believe that they are hiding the butt there is no potential threat of an active shooter situation at the tanforan mall. They believe this was a targeted attack and that the two victims taken to s. F. General hospital are in stable condition. And the two other victims unclear whether or not they were injured in the actual shooting itself or if they were injured as people were trying to evacuate the mall. This transferred over to oakland and the east bay. There were some children that speculated that one of the suspects there may be as many as two suspects got away. Possibly on bart. The 12th street station had to be closed for a while, that of course turn the whole situation to systemwide into a big mess. But just to clarify from the police chief in san bruno, there have been no suspects taken into ciallyn areawherther we use a term, people of interest. Sometimes they will set people down, put handcuffs on them and say wait a minute, youre going to round up everybody that we think may be involved and talk about what exactly happened. We were talking about the impact this is having on public transport. Let us back to chris filippini who is a spokesperson with the bart. What can you tell us about the closures and the 12th street station in oakland . The 12th street station has been reopened, the train that they were searching has been released, and we are in the process of restoring normal service. Having said that, given the timing of that particular station is shut down. We are still visit experiencing residual delays and that is systemwide. Folks if youre going to take apart tonight, do not expect our schedule to match up with the posted schedule. We have significant delays and they will last for some time because of the impact from our two station closures. The 12th street station has been reopened. The station that remains closed is san bruno. San bruno is close, we dont have an estimate at this point for when service there is going to be restored. There is still an active investigation going on at the mall. Out of an abundance of caution and to help out the investigation were going to keep the san bruno station close for now. Chris i wonder if you can confirm for us the activity at 12th street, it was directly related to tanforan mall . Is that the information you are getting . Veiganbaarched a trlooking for potential suspects in connection with what happened at tanforan mall. And was the information you were given that the suspects, immediately after the shooting, hart hopped on a bart train before bart had time to close the station and took it to oakland . That is preliminary information. It is just being responsive to a potential lead in this case. Art police will do their job to cooperate with the San Bruno Police and this was a part of that, stopping a train we had to have been in san bruno, and reasonably the suspects could be on the train to be conducted a car by karsh search with the oakland Police Department but no suspects were found. Bottom line as you said just a moment ago. System is impacted pretty much systemwide. And people should expect delays and the schedule may be a bit off tonight . Yes and the other important thing to mention is that we have now set up a trust bridge at South San Francisco with the help, so we now have a bus bridge operating between bart South San Francisco and sfo. So in other words there is a way for folks to get to the airport, even of the san bruno station is closed they can hop on the bus bridge and they can still get to the airport if they are headed to South San Francisco. Earlier this evening you mentioned there was a shuttle between millbrae and sfo but would not continue past San Francisco International Airport are we talking about the same line or is that still the case . That shuttle train is still operating between millbrae and sfo so that is still in operation, but we are talking about is if folks are in San Francisco and heading south towards the airport right now they cannot go any further on bart than San Francisco or South San Francisco. They can get off at South San Francisco and take a shuttle bus to the airport. Do you have any indication when san bruno station it will be reopened . Our police giving you any indication . Ballpark . At this point we have been given no estimate of when san bruno will be open. Chris filippini from bart, i appreciate your help and sorting it all out. Bottom line is the system has been impacted so expect probably major delays. Major delays all evening again. The san bruno station is still going to be closed indefinitely. There are some shuttle situations if youre hoping to get to the airport and that area, but the 12th street station in oakland that was closed as a part of this investigation, bart just confirmed that cents has been reopened. But any time a major artery like that closes, it is a systemwide delay throughout the evening. We went to check in with opds spokeswoman john watson who has some information for us. We will defer to them and take direction on how we can help them with this case. Bart obviously has all of surveillance cameras and were able to see if the suspect came or left, is the concern that the suspect got away or they may never have been at the station to begin with . We absolutely believe that the suspect did enter bart. We believe they did aboard the train and we do believe that they may have come to this area. Very good information. But, prior to our officers arriving here and then searching not only the streets and the surrounding areas as they are arriving but also going down below the surface streets and onto the bart platforms and then also onto the bart train. Again, we conducted a very systematic search, we wanted to be safe for the bart writers and for our committee here. Downtown oakland is a very busy area. We have a lot of pedestrian traffic along with vehicle traffic. We immediately reached out to the medication director who pushed information. With over 5000 employees who work here in the city, as you know city hall is right here. Plus we have a lot of private businesses. So to push that message out to our community, what we are doing why we are doing it and that it is safe now. We can return to the bart trains and the platforms, that is paramount. We are asking people and shutting stations down and evacuating trains, it is really important to share that information. Where was the suspect arrested . We have not made an a rest. W have not made an arrest we came to search for a suspect. I can certainly step to the side, i know everyone is live here and we can continue our conversation. Does that sound good . You said we would be keeping a presence out here can you anticipate for how much longer are the rest of the night . We certainly have downtown walking officers. Because we just evacuated the trains we assisted bart with doing that. We are going to keep a high profile. We have someone read over in the corner our wealth walking officers. You will see us out into the evening. Thank you appreciated. You have been watching the oakland Police Department Public Information officer john watson sort of lay down what we suspected all along that the shooters did in fact leave the tanforan mall. Shooter or shooters we have not confirmed how many gunmen there were. And, hopped on board an oakland bound train. That is a pretty gutsy move. Armed and dangerous. They have video, apparently or surveillance of them on the platform going down to the station, getting on the train which is why we saw the response there at 12th street. Searching the train and looking for suspects. Fortunately no suspect was apprehended. This whole incident and started at the tanforan mall which is where betty is on the ground with new information. Betty . Reporter right now we are outside of the parking lot at century theaters near sears auto center. If you take a look behind me you will see some heavily armed officers at the entryway here. I wanted to show you the crowd. A lot of these people, their cars are in the parking garage. They dont have a lot of options right now. They are trying to get home, trying to get in a but a lot of people have no choice but to stand around. Now, i have with me a man who was in the middle of a movie with his grandmother. You were telling me there was popcorn everywhere as people had to evacuate and get out of there. What happened . First of the movie stopped, we thought that was probably like the movie wasnt working, and it was to evacuate we thought maybe it was house to wait a little bit until the movie starts up again. And then i heard my grandma talking to some of the workers, and the workers told us that there was a shooting near shoe palace, and that just freaked me out a little bit. Then when i saw some cops there, i was like oh that is a little more more calming but then seeing a lot of garbage on the floor, i thought a lot of people mustve been freaking out. I was thinking like maybe some of them got close but then like when i saw the cops and all the guns i was like im pretty sure we are safe. No one would ever go near there. A scary sight indeed. For a lot of people who are telling me that this is just too close to home. Reporter how are you feeling now that luckily you are out of there, and youve been evacuated safely . I feel pretty good and i am just, i hope that this people get caught for what they did. And hearing what happened to those people of a shot, i felt so bad. And i feel like this people should just like giving , too m and then they can just be done. Reporter thank you so much up for sharing and describing to us what happened, we are glad you and your grandmother are okay. That is something we have been hearing all afternoon, and now into the evening out here that this is just too close to home. People were just trying to watch a movie and were interrupt did in the middle of it. So now, they are standing in the parking lot and just kind of waiting for new instructions on what to do, and of course we have a lot of officers here. And also some members of the san bruno Fire Department on hand. Continue to bring you more developments as soon as we have them. People cannot get there cars out of the garage because it is locked down. Simon perez mentioned something in a had a witness who stated this. There were shots fired inside a place e lot of people congregate. There was broken glass on the floor as one witness who came out near the food court said. There was broken glass, presumably from a bullet. You think about life a fire situation like that where rounds are flying down those hallways. And, nobody got hit except for the two intended targets, not that that is a good thing but it couldve been worse. When you think about that and you hear from these different witnesses, and one witness thought, he thought he heard shots from the shoe palace, another one said it was by the Movie Theater, another was that it was by the entrance from bart into the mall and how you can imagine how chaotic it was. All the witnesses say that the entire shooting incident lasted between 30 seconds to one minute but in that time there was just sheer chaos of not knowing where the gunfire, if it indeed was gunfire and where it was coming from. But it is important to note that they are still conducting a systematic search of the mall. We heard from San Bruno Police just a few moments ago. And they have said they do not believe that there is a threat at this moment. They believe the suspects did get away. Have not made any arrests, but they are hiding from law enforcement. But there is not an active shooter situation. These victims were not random, but that there is no intended threat right now. But they are still conducting their investigation which is why those folks cannot get into the parking garage to get their cars because police, as you can imagine, leaving no stern stone unturned. Try to find anything that can lead them to the suspects. I saw people running, i heard four pop, pop, pop, pop. Stretching from the peninsula to the east bay this all started at the tanforan mall in san bruno. Good evening. Oakland police have also become involved. We are told they were at one point looking for a suspect at the 12th street bart station. That bart station has now been reopened. Here is what we know so far. Police first got a call at