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Dec. 24 (UPI) -- A 19-year-old man was killed Friday during an altercation between two groups in a department store at the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, police said. The shooting happened at 7:50 p.m. in the Nordstrom store at the mall during a confrontation between two groups of young men, Bloomington, Minn., Police Chief Booker Hodges told reporters.
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No arrests have been made in the incident, in which a nearby Bloomington police officer heard the shots and arrived to find the victim lying on the store's floor.
The victim's name was not released. Hodges said he and Bloomington Mayor Tim Busse had met with members of his family.
"We had 16 officers working today in the mall," he said. "Sixteen cops, and they still decide to do this. I'm at a loss."
The mall was placed on lockdown after the incident but was reopened to allow shoppers to leave by 10 p.m.
The country's biggest shopping mall is set reopen for Christmas Eve shoppers at 10 a.m. Saturday, but Nordstrom, one of its longest-tenured tenants and anchor stores, would remain closed, officials said.
Witnesses said alarms were heard inside the mall after the shooting.
"An alarm went off in the mall, which was unusual, and an announcement said a lockdown was happening and to go into a store and head to the back," shopper Dan Kauppi, told the Star Tribune. "The store I am in closed their front gates. After a few moments, they said we should head to the stock room."
The incident came five months after another shooting incident at the Mall of America in which two men, identified as Shamar Lark and Rashad May, opened fire at the Nike store following an altercation.
No one was injured in that incident.
