Mall customers, employees describe chaos following shooting at Independence Center
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INDEPENDENCE, Missouri (KCTV) — Some called it chaos. Some called it surreal. Some called it scary. It was all of the above.
Four people were shot Friday afternoon at Independence Center. At last check, one of them was in critical condition.
Janice Moore was pacing in the parking lot. Her daughter, Jaylan, works at the store in the mall. Her daughter called her to say there was shooting, that she had pulled down the store gate and was locked into a back room with a customer. She wanted her mom to hear it from her first, not the news. She said she was okay. She’d meet her at home. That wouldn’t do. Janice wanted to see her the moment she got out. She drove from her job in Olathe. It was a one-hour drive that seemed like forever. The two ran to each other and held each other.
“I’m OK,” Jaylan said.
“I know,” Janice said.
“I’m alive,” Jaylan said.
“She told me I didn’t have to come. She was safe, but I said I’m not going to be able to breathe until I hold your sweet face in my hands,” Janice told KCTV5. “I’m so proud of this young lady. She stayed calm, cool, collected. Kept herself safe and the customer safe that she had with her.”
Jaylan, who is 21, was working at a store not far from the entrance. Police said the shooting happened right inside the front entrance at approximately 2:20 p.m. She recounted what happened from her perspective.
“I heard four big bangs and I had a customer in the store and we looked at each other, like, ‘Was that?” Jaylan described. “And then we saw people running and gates closing and we were like, ‘Okay.’ And so, I closed the gates and we went to the back room and we just kept waiting to hear stuff and get updates.”
Several people who heard the gunshots said they didn’t know what the noise was at first.
“I wasn’t sure they were gunshots,” said Vincent Kloeckner, who was working in a different store. “It sounded like somebody slapping a 2 by 4 together. Just like bang bang bang bang. Rapid fire.”
Christopher and Nick Stephens were in the food court one floor below. They were watching videos on their phones. Christopher could hear it over his headphones.
“I thought it was a chair being pulled out,” said Christopher, “because it made similar noises like gah gah gah gah.”
“I really didn’t think anything of it until I saw multiple people running,” said Nick.
They saw people signaling for them to run. They grabbed their things.
“And then I heard another shot in the background,” Christopher said. “And that’s when I realized, ‘Oh. Okay. So, they’re shooting.’”
Police say the shooting involved an exchange of gunfire between two groups of people. They haven’t yet said if any of the victims were people caught in the crossfire. They said they took three people of interest into custody.
Jaylan opens the store tomorrow and didn’t seem at all stressed about going back. Asked how she stayed so composed, she said she’s been doing active shooter training since kindergarten in school, so she just kicked into that like it was second nature.
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