USATSI
The Mall of America was put into lockdown on Friday after a 19-year-old man was killed during a shooting, according to Bloomington Police. At the time of the shooting and subsequent lockdown, some New York Giants players were believed to be inside the Mall of America. The team is in Minnesota for Saturday’s Week 16 matchup against the Vikings. Giants executive vice president of communications Pat Hanlon told the Associated Press that the team was staying at the hotel adjacent to the mall and that some players were inside at the time of the shooting. Hanlon added that “everyone is back in the hotel and accounted for.”Longtime Giants radio play-by-play announcer Bob Papa tweeted that he was also inside the Mall of America at the time of the lockdown.
According to Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges, there appeared to be some type of altercation between two groups at the mall’s Nordstrom location. At one point, someone pulled out a gun and fatally shot the victim multiple times. Mall surveillance showed the altercation between the two groups — estimated to be five to nine people — break out into a fistfight before the gun was drawn and someone opened fire. Along with the 19-year-old victim, a bystander’s jacket was also grazed by a bullet during the shooting at the mall’s Nordstrom location, according to Hodges. The entire incident is said to have lasted roughly 30 seconds. “We don’t know why it happened or what happened,” Hodges said.