A 19-year-old man was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the chest Thursday night in the parking lot of a West Dundee mall, a fire official said.
Two men reported to have run from the scene apparently were involved in the shooting at Spring Hill Mall, which happened just after 6:30 p.m., police said.
After the shooting, the victim, whom officials did not identify, made his way into a Kohl’s department store, Carpentersville Fire Capt. Larry Campbell said.
“Somehow, under his own power, he got just inside the double doors,” Campbell said.
He was in the store when paramedics arrived and was alert and talking in the ambulance on the way to Sherman Hospital in Elgin, where he was rushed into surgery, Campbell said.
He remained in critical condition Thursday night with a single gunshot wound, said Chris Priester, spokeswoman for Sherman Hospital.
Evelyn Hernandez, an employee at the Perfume Center, a store adjacent to the Kohl’s mall entrance, said she heard a young boy shouting that he saw a gun inside Kohl’s and saw him scramble.
“He ran out of Kohl’s and his sisters were in here. All of a sudden I saw security and lots of police all over,” Hernandez said.
Blake Sabatine of Algonquin, 15, was with friends and shopping during their spring break
“We drove past Kohl’s and it was blocked, and then we really didn’t know what was going on when Barnes and Noble was blocked off [too], ” Sabatine said.
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Marlon Cabrera, an employee at Steve & Barry’s, said he saw two mall security guards run through their store and then received a phone call that there had been a shooting and to be cautious because a gunman was on the loose.
Erika Sundheim, manager at the Steve & Barry’s store west of the Kohl’s, said she was “very agitated” because mall security and police were not giving mall employees much information. Sundheim said their store shares a parking lot with Kohl’s.
A Kohl’s department store employee declined to comment Thursday.
Despite an inch of new snow on the ground, shoppers continued coming in and out of the mall Thursday night. Shoppers near the Kohl’s lot were being asked to leave by mall security.
Most did not know that a shooting had taken place.
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