OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A teenage boy suspected in a shooting at a Nebraska mall that left one man dead and a woman injured was arrested Sunday on a murder warrant, police said.
Omaha Police said 16-year-old Makhi Woolridge-Jones is facing a first-degree murder charge in the shooting Saturday at the Westroads Mall in Omaha. Brandon Woolridge-Jones, 18, was earlier arrested on a charge of being an accessory to the shooting.
The two young men were identified as brothers in a previous court filing their mother submitted in 2016 for a protection order.
Authorities said 21-year-old Trequez Swift was shot and died at an Omaha hospital. A woman, 22-year-old Ja’Keya Veland, was wounded in her leg, but her injuries are not considered life-threatening.
Officials believe the shooting at Westroads Mall in Omaha was an isolated incident, and not a random attack.
Police determined the suspects had fled the scene after searching the mall, according to Omaha police Lt. Neal Bonacci. Officers first gave the “all clear” around 1 p.m. — about an hour after multiple shots were fired, The Omaha World-Herald reports.
The gunfire caused panic, as people fled from the main section of the mall, according to a World-Herald reporter who was in the food court when the shooting happening.
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“It was shocking,” said Alyha Wills, who was in Forever 21 with her sister when other shoppers asked if she’d heard the gunfire.
She then fled, saying, “I could hear it; it was close.”
This is the second reported shooting at Westroads Mall in a little more than a month. Omaha Police Officer Jeffrey Wittstruck was shot four times by a 21-year-old man who was accused of shoplifting T-shirts from J.C. Penney on March 12. Wittstruck survived.
The J.C. Penney is about 200 feet from Von Maur, where a gunman killed eight people and himself in 2007.
