Wisconsin mall shooting leaves person dead; suspect flees

Authorities respond Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021, to the Fox River Mall in Grand Chute, Wis., after two people were shot there.
Authorities respond Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021, to the Fox River Mall in Grand Chute, Wis., after two people were shot there.

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. — A suspect left one person dead and another with minor injuries Sunday before fleeing a shooting scene at a northern Wisconsin mall, police said.

Police were called to the Fox River Mall in Grand Chute, a suburb of Appleton, at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday. The unidentified shooter remained on the loose Sunday night, authorities said.

Grand Chute Police Officer Travis Waas did not identify either victim.

Wass said the shooter left the mall before officers arrived. Police said they were interviewing witnesses and following leads. No motive was immediately released.

Photos from the scene showed officers, some in tactical gear, staging 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 said: “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 were still waiting for the all-clear nearly three hours later.

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 north of Milwaukee.

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