Two minutes after he started spraying bullets at diners inside a mall food court in Greenwood, officials said on Monday, a 20-year-old man with a rifle and handgun and access to another weapon and more than 100 rounds of ammunition was slain by a bystander.
Three people had been murdered and two more wounded when the shooter, later named by authorities as Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, opened fire. However, on Sunday, a 22-year-old onlooker shopping with his girlfriend and carrying a weapon put a stop to the killing spree.
Elisjsha Dicken of Seymour, Indiana, was identified by Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison as the bystander who performed the heroic efforts.
During a news conference, Chief Ison described surveillance video footage of the shooting, saying that the officer who shot the gunman “engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun, was very proficient in that, very tactically sound, and as he moved to close in on suspect, he also was motioning for people to leave behind him.”
Victor Gomez, 30, and a married couple, Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera, 37, were recognised by the Johnson County coroner as the three fatalities. In addition, a 22-year-old lady was hospitalised with a leg wound, and a 12-year-old kid was hit by a bullet fragment and is in critical condition today.
A total of 24 shots were fired by Mr. Sapirman, according to Chief Ison. Mr. Sapirman shot all of the victims. Mr. Dicken killed the assailant as he attempted to flee into a mall toilet, where he had allegedly spent an hour planning for the assault. He fired 10 shots, killing the attacker.
According to the police chief, no reason for the shooting has been established.
The gunman’s family informed authorities he had no history of violence or instability, although he had just been served with an eviction notice and had quit from his warehouse job in May. In the past, Chief Ison said, the shooter had run-ins with the local police, including one over a brawl he got into at school.
The shooter had been practising his shooting skills at a range about 15 miles south of Indianapolis for the previous two years, according to family members who spoke to authorities.
Sig Sauer M400 rifle he purchased in March 2022; M&P15 rifle found in the mall restroom and purchased in March 2021; and Glock 33 handgun recovered on his body — all three were taken into the Greenwood Park Mall by Mr. Sapirman, according to the police. Greenwood police confirmed that the guns were bought lawfully.
According to Chief Ison, the shooter entered the mall just before 5 p.m. and proceeded to the food court’s restroom, where he stayed for approximately an hour before firing shots into the crowd.
Mr. Dicken fired and killed the shooter two minutes later.
He was detained and taken to a police station for interrogation where security camera video verified his account of the events. Mr. Dicken was carrying his Glock 9-millimeter pistol lawfully under the state’s constitutional carry statute, according to Chief Ison, who claimed the police couldn’t tell whether he had a firearms permit.
Mark Myers, Greenwood’s mayor, stated on Monday that “this young guy, Greenwood’s good Samaritan, moved within seconds, halting the gunman and saving other lives.”
In the oven of the Greenwood apartment where the shooter lived alone, authorities executed a search warrant on Sunday night, uncovering a laptop and a can of butane that had been left on at a high temperature.
In spite of the damage caused by the high temperatures, the laptop will be examined, according to the head of the department. A waterlogged smartphone that the shooter may have hidden in a toilet in the mall’s women’s restroom is also being investigated by police.
The city of Greenwood, which has a population of over 63,000, has been rocked by the incident.
According to Mayor Myers, “I don’t want to be one of the mayors that has to make these pronouncements.” “I mourn for the wounds that these senseless deaths leave behind, both on the victims and on our community,” I say.
At an unconnected vigil in Beech Grove, nine miles north of Greenwood, four individuals were shot, one of them fatally, hours after the massacre at the mall.
