Shoppers run, flee for cover after mall shooting

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - Annabelle Anderson and her friend, Lauren Potts, were hanging out near Sears inside of the Independence Center when they heard several shots Saturday afternoon.

"Everybody stopped started screaming, me and Lauren didn't know what to do," said Anderson.

The teen girls ran to a Macy's dressing room where they called their parents.

"I just got a frantic call saying something about Macy's," said Laren's Mom, Lisa Anderson.

Lisa Anderson said she arrived at the store and found the girls shaking and crying in a fitting room.

"I got them and we got out of there," said Anderson.

Officers and security guards escorted customers out of Independence Center.

Darrell DuCoulombier left the mall, but he helped one of the victim's first. DuCoulombier said he was in Forever 21 when the shots started.

"I was like everybody get in the back room and they funneled in there and as soon as they did I took the metal ladder and i propped it up against the door," said DuCoulombier.

He said he found a male and a female both lying near the store. He said they were both in their late teens.

"The girl had her shoe off and she had a three-inch laceration on the bottom of her foot and the guy got shot in the right pelvis," said DuCoulombier.

DuCoulombier helped calm the teens down and then he left.

Officers said the shooting started as an altercation between a few groups outside of Sears.

They have released two photos of people they are calling persons-of-interest.

Anyone with information on the shootings is urged to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

The mall reopened as normal Sunday.