10 hospitalized after Mall of Louisiana shooting

We’re hearing just one shooter or multiple. What can you tell us at this point? So right about 1:22 this afternoon, we got reports of shots fired here at the mall in the courtyard, uh, the food courtyard area. We had *** massive law enforcement and medical response come thanks to all our responding agencies. Everybody from the sheriff’s office in Saint George State Police and even FBI came to help to respond to this. We got here very quickly, secured the scene, no more active shooting going on. Um, we, uh, started treating victims until EMS got here. EMS got here very quickly. We were able to transport victims away from the scene within minutes. Uh, what, what we found out looking through surveillance videos, it looks like it was kind of *** targeted, uh, two groups of people got into an argument inside the food court and started shooting at each other. Um, unfortunately there were some innocent people that were in the area that might have also caused some rounds. Uh, right now we have 10 victims at local area hospitals, some. By EMS and some arriving by private vehicle. Definitely our hearts and prayers go out to all the victims involved in this various levels of injuries, and we’re going to keep giving y’all updates as we get there. Right now we don’t know. We have, you know, at least *** couple of them that are in trauma going through surgery, so we don’t have an exact number right now. We’ll give you those numbers as soon as they become available. Parking lots still full of vehicles. Are you still working to get customers, people who are in the. At the time of the mall, yes, so as we get some resources kind of freed up, we’re still, you know, going through the mall, making sure we don’t have people that locked down and hide and make sure that they’re safe and OK, and we’re going to start trying to just evacuate the whole area. We had *** big, of course, big crime scene set up in case the suspects were on feet in the area looking at canals. We’ve got helicopters, drones, all those kind of resources, so we had everything locked down, not wanting anybody to leave, but we’re going to start opening that up as soon as we can. Are you guys how many? Weapons that were used, you know, we don’t know right now. We’re looking through all the surveillance video and combing through crime scenes processing, looking at Shell casings that were on the scene. Anybody that has any help, please plead out to the community right now. If you know anything, please call Crime Stoppers. You can remain anonymous. 344 stop if you have any information that you can give us. Do you believe there’s any threat to the public at all right now there is no known threat to the public. Right here is the safest place in Baton Rouge in this area. But as we start developing suspects, we’re going to run down every single lead that we can to get these people in custody. But it does not appear to be just *** random act of violence, but *** very targeted kind of disagreement between two groups of people. How many people in those two groups right now? I don’t want to kind of release that information because it’s really preliminary. Do we know the age ranges of the victims at all? No, not right now. So what would you say to this to people out there watching or waking up, seeing this or looking at this during their lunch hour and just kind of really worried about what might be going on with Baton Rouge? Yeah, so, uh, first thing is keep these, keep these victims in your prayers, right? Second thing, just know that Baton Rouge Police Department and all these agencies out of here, EMS, fire department, everybody that responded, we are trained for this, right? Um, unfortunately, it’s one of the part of the jobs that we trained regularly on responding to an active shooter scene like this, you know, hats on to all the law enforcement that came, stabled everybody, EMS that got here and quickly transported the, uh, victims to get the care they needed at the local area hospitals, and that we are going to control this, Mayor. Like I say, number one, you know, first and foremost prayers for the victims and their families above all else. I want to thank our public safety officials, all the law enforcement people are out here. This is proof of how good they are and the response they had and what they’re doing and Thugs who did this, we’re going to catch you, OK? We’re not going to have this in Baton Rouge. It’s not going to happen, and I have complete confidence in our law enforcement partners that we’re going to get, we’re going to go out and grab these guys and get them off the street. Thank you, Mayor. If we may look, we just had *** major The domestic mass shooting in Shreveport made national news. Now we’re looking at this, uh, people that are scared. What do you, what do you say to them today? Well, they, I, I think people at the end of the day have the right to be concerned, you know, about it. And sometimes the devil lives everywhere and this is one of those situations. No matter how much law enforcement you got or social programs. So whatever if someone gets in their mind that they’re going to do something like this, they’re going to do it and then sometimes all we can do is respond. I just want the public to know that we’ve got the finest, whether it’s medical, law enforcement, all our agencies are the finest in the country to respond to these things. Let me add one thing. Let me add one thing please. Definitely think. Thank you to all our agencies that are here offering all the resources that we need. Um, second thing, anybody in the community that has videos, cell phones are everywhere. So if you have cell phone video that you might be thinking of interest, please reach out to us. We have links that we can send you where you can send us those cell phone videos anonymously, and you can remain anonymous and give us those cell phone videos. Thank you all very much, and we’ll update y’all again as soon as we get more information.