10 hours ago
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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An exchange of gunfire at a food court inside a Louisiana mall on Thursday killed one person and wounded five others and sent workers and shoppers scrambling for safety, police and witnesses said.
Authorities described the shooting inside the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge as a confrontation between two groups of people and not a random attack. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said some innocent bystanders were struck by gunfire.
Police Chief TJ Morse said five people were in custody, and there was no ongoing threat to the public.
“This was a disagreement, a fight, between two different groups of people that we are still trying to unravel, and unfortunately innocent victims got caught in the crossfire,” Morse said in a news conference.
Three high school seniors from Ascension Episcopal School were among the victims of the shooting, according to a Facebook post from Lafayette Parish President Monique Blanco Boulet.
“We are heartbroken by the senseless violence that happened today at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge,” she said, adding that she was asking her community to “join us in holding all of these families close in prayer.”
Rachel Delcambre, a spokesperson for the school, said in an email that the school would not be giving additional information at this time “out of deep respect for the families and the sensitivity of this situation.”
Authorities initially said as many as 10 people h...
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