GRAND CHUTE, Wis. — Four people have been arrested and a teenage suspect is on the run following a shooting that left one person dead and another wounded at a mall in northern Wisconsin, police said.
Dezman Ellis, 17, is considered a suspect in the gunfire that erupted around 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Fox River Mall in Grand Chute, police Officer Travis Waas said. The victims were specifically targeted, police said, and Ellis should be considered armed and dangerous.
Jovanni J. Frausto, 19, died in the shooting, police said in a statement. A second person who was also shot went to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was later released.
Officers received information Monday morning that Ellis’ vehicle was parked at a duplex in Oshkosh, about 20 miles (33 kilometers) south of Grand Chute. Officers found the car at the duplex and four people inside the residence became who “physically combative” were arrested, Waas said in a news release.
The group included a 15-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl, an 18-year-old girl and a 37-year-old woman. Police said they do not know how or if the four are connected to Ellis.
Photos from the scene on Sunday showed officers, some in tactical gear, outside the mall and what appeared to be customers walking out with their hands in the air.
Haylie Mirr, who works at a mall restaurant called Box Lunch, said she didn't know anything about the shooting, but that: “People just started running. We just locked the doors, and we had four customers in the store, we brought them to our back room.”
They waited at least three hours for the all-clear.
Police said they were interviewing witnesses and following leads. No motive was immediately released.
It was the second recent mall shooting in Wisconsin. In November, eight people were injured in a shooting after a confrontation at a mall in Wauwatosa, in suburban Milwaukee. A 15-year-old boy was arrested and charged.
Grand Chute is a town of about 22,000 on the outskirts of Appleton, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Milwaukee.
