Girl Hurt in Gunfire at Westminster Mall : Violence: Shoppers duck in terror as shots ring out. Teen-ager who fired into a group of youths escapes.

By THUAN LE and MARK PLATTE

July 8, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

WESTMINSTER — As terrified shoppers ducked for cover or hid in nearby stores, a teen-ager fired more than five rounds from the upper level of Westminster Mall on Wednesday afternoon into a knot of youths below, scattering the group and hitting a 13-year-old girl twice in the back.

The girl, whom police declined to identify, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange. She was in stable condition after the 4 p.m. shooting, which sent shoppers running and renewed concerns about safety at malls in Southern California.

The shooter, about 17 or 18 years old, ran from the scene. He remained at large Wednesday night, police said. Nobody else was hurt.

Investigators speculated that the attacker and victim knew one other but were uncertain whether the attack was gang-related or the result of an argument, Sgt. Bill Lewis said. It also was unclear if the girl was the intended target, because she was with a group of friends, he said.

Carrie Graham, 22, of Westminster said she was on the upper level when she heard about five gunshots, then watched as the wounded girl fell.

“Everyone just froze at first and stood around, wondering if it was firecrackers,” said Graham, noting that there were about 10 other shoppers in the immediate area. “That girl’s friend looked up and I looked where she was staring at the guy running away.”

Graham then ran downstairs into the Vans Tennis Shoes store, grabbed several T-shirts and covered the victim, she said.

The victim “was bleeding. She looked so young,” Graham said. “I’m still so shaken by this.”

Alex Alizadeh, 16, said he and a friend were in a pet store around a corner from Vans when he heard gunfire.

“We ran out here and saw some people on the escalators there ducking down,” he said. “The girl that was shot was screaming and yelling.”

Eight stores, including Vans and others next to the shooting scene, were closed as police cordoned off the area, but the remainder of the 175-store mall, which includes two movie theaters, remained open.

Shoppers just off work gathered around the scene of the shooting to stare at the spent shell casings on the ground and at television cameras gathered at the scene. Many said they could not believe what they had just witnessed.

“They dared to come in here to shoot somebody,” said Phuc Le, 25, of Fountain Valley. “That’s scary.”

When the shots rang out, some shoppers ran into B. Dalton Bookseller nearby on the bottom floor, said the store’s assistant manager, Brian McDaniel, 21.

“It sounded exactly like gunshots,” McDaniel said. “People were just trying to get out of the way.”

With this latest round of violence at a suburban mall--at least the ninth such instance in Southern California since late 1989--storekeepers and customers have begun to question the security of a world that formerly seemed off-limits to senseless violence.

“I get a lot of customers in here asking whether malls are all that safe,” said Mike Ramirez, an assistant manager at Vans. “They wonder what the world’s coming to when you can’t even walk through a mall to go shopping anymore.”

Last March, an employee of the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance was shot and killed as he opened the mall’s video arcade. He was the second mall worker to die since January, 1991, when a 19-year-old move usher was shot and killed, also at the Del Amo center.

A gang-related shooting erupted in a West Covina shopping mall a year ago February, resulting in the wounding of a 45-year-old shopper and a 19-year-old gang member. Two youths were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the shooting.

Three days before Christmas, 1990, two holiday shoppers were wounded in a Long Beach mall in a gunfight between two gangs. At the Puente Mall in the City of Industry last year, a gunman opened fire in a movie theater during a showing of the the film “American Me.” A 17-year-old was killed and a 20-year-old woman was injured.

In Orange County, a 12-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed a schoolmate, also 12, at the Mall of Orange in December, 1989.

And violence at the Westminster Mall is not new.

Last November, a teen-age boy was stabbed in the arm and lung during a gang fight, and police arrested six in the aftermath of the bloody outburst. Witnesses said the late afternoon fight began when two groups of youths began taunting each other, and grew into a flurry of fistfights that lasted about 10 minutes before police and mall security officers arrived.

After that, Westminster police doubled the number of uniformed officers patrolling the mall from two to four during the pre-holiday months of November and December.

Since January, the mall has paid two on-duty officers overtime to patrol the mall from 6 until 9 p.m., when it closes on weekdays. The mall also employs its own security force around the clock, with about four to five officers per shift during the day and evening hours and one officer on a graveyard shift.

After December’s stabbing, mall shoppers and store owners said they had noticed a greater presence of gangs in the mall and lamented the increasing violence at a shopping area they visit to escape the outside world.

But Nancy Feightner, the mall’s general manager for the past seven years, said Westminster Mall is not a haven for violence or gangs.

“Every mall has groups of kids that increase in the summertime,” she said. “This is such a rare incident that when it happens, we are surprised and shocked. This is not a gang hangout, and we work hard to make sure it isn’t.”

Mall security officers are instructed to break up groups of loitering youths. Feightner said an officer was just approaching the group involved in Wednesday afternoon’s incident when shots rang out. One of the bullets passed over the officer’s head, Feightner said.

The negative publicity over the shooting is certain to stir new debate about the safety of malls, said Feightner, who dreads the thought.

“There is nothing we hate more than this type of incident,” she said. “Statistically, malls are very, very safe but the world is getting kind of wild.”

Mall Violence

The shooting Wednesday of a 13-year-old girl at the Westminster Mall is at least the ninth such instance of violence at a mall in Southern California since late 1989:

* Westminster Mall (November, 1992): A teen-age boy is stabbed in the arm and a lung during a gang fight on the mall’s first floor. Police arrest six.

* Puente Mall in the City of Industry (April, 1992): A 17-year-old boy is killed and a 20-year-old woman critically wounded when a gunman opens fire in the mall’s movie theater during a showing of “American Me.”

* Lakewood Center Mall (March, 1992): A 49-year-old man is shot and killed in the parking lot after refusing to surrender his car keys. Three people, ages 19 to 22, are arrested.

* Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance (March, 1992): A mall employee is shot and killed as he prepares to open a video arcade.

* The Plaza at West Covina (February, 1992): Rival gang members open fire, wounding a 45-year-old shopper and a 19-year-old gang member. Two teen-agers are sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the shooting.

* Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance (January, 1991): A 19-year-old movie usher is shot and killed during a robbery attempt.

* Long Beach Plaza (December, 1990): Three days before Christmas, two shoppers--a 17-year-old boy and a 49-year-old woman holding her grandchild--are wounded during a gunfight between gangs.

* Orange Mall (December, 1989): A 12-year-old boy, waving a loaded gun at a 12-year-old classmate, accidentally shoots and kills her.

Source: Los Angeles Times clips