7 injured in Black Friday shootings

US: Gun violence erupted at retail outlets crowded with post-Thanksgiving holiday shoppers in North Carolina and Washington state on Friday, sending bystanders at both locations scurrying for cover and injuring a total of seven people, Police said.

At a shopping mall in Durham, North Carolina, a late-afternoon shootout between “two groups who knew each other” left three people struck by ricocheting gunfire and three others injured in the ensuing chaos, city Police Chief Patrice Andrews said.

One of those wounded was a 10-year-old boy, but Andrews described the injuries sustained by all six people hurt in the melee as non-life-threatening.

She said it was not immediately clear whether any of the victims were among the individuals who exchanged gunfire, and that the majority of those involved had fled the scene, though one was taken into custody. “This is not a situation where someone came into the mall and indiscriminately just began firing,” she said, adding that she expected additional arrests. One weapon was recovered, Andrews told reporters at a briefing afterwards.

A department store employee who was working at the time of shooting told WRAL-TV, based in nearby Raleigh, that he counted six gunshots that rang out through the mall, triggering a stampede of Black Friday shoppers running for the nearest exit.

The Streets at Southpoint mall was locked down and evacuated as law enforcement swept through the shopping centre.

A short time earlier across the country, security officer shot a man suspected of trying to steal merchandise from a Walmart store during an altercation in the eastern Washington town of Kennewick, police said. – INDIA TODAY