An Indianapolis husband and wife identified as Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37, as well as Victor Gomez, 30, were fatally wounded when Jonathan Sapirman opened fire on shoppers inside the Greenwood Park Mall shortly before 6 in the afternoon. police and the local coroner announced Monday.
Sapirman, 20, was also killed when he was shot by a legally armed man who was in the mall shopping with his girlfriend at the time, Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said at a news conference.
That shopper, 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, of Seymour, shot and killed Sapirman with a handgun two minutes after the shooting began.
He was praised for his heroic efforts in informing the media.
“We are very thankful for a young 22-year-old who stopped this violent act,” said Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers. “This young man, a Greenwood Good Samaritan, acted within seconds, stopping the shooter and saving countless lives.”
If not for Elisjsha Dicken’s quick actions to take down the gunman, “A lot more people would have died,” says Greenwood Police Chief James Ison. Good Sam Facebook
Sapirman, who quit his warehouse job and was facing eviction, entered the mall just before 5 p.m. and went straight into a bathroom near the food court where he spent more than an hour preparing for the shooting, he said. Ison.
An hour and two minutes later, he came out of the bathroom and immediately began firing a rifle at people in the food court — first hitting Gomez, then Pineda.
The gunman also shot a 22-year-old woman in the leg. He is recovering in a local hospital.
A 12-year-old girl also received medical treatment after being struck in the back by a bullet fragment that fell from a wall inside the mall, Ison said.
Two minutes after Sapirman opened fire, Dicken confronted him and fired 10 rounds into him from a distance. Sapirman tried to retreat to the bathroom to hide, but was mortally wounded and fell to the floor.
The motive for Sunday’s mall shooting remains unknown to law enforcement.AP
Police said Dicken, who legally carried the gun, has no military background or police training, but showed smarts and brave instincts.
“His actions were nothing short of heroic,” Ison said. “He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a gun, he was very good at it, very well tactical and as he moved to approach the suspect he also motioned for people to get behind him.”
Sapirman, who has no criminal record other than minor juvenile assaults, fired 24 rounds from an AR-15-style rifle in the two minutes before he was taken out.
“Many more people would have died last night if it wasn’t for a responsible armed citizen who took action very quickly,” Ison said.
Police found a second rifle, handgun, several magazines and more than 100 rounds of ammunition that were on the shooter and hidden in the mall’s bathroom. Officers also found Sapirman’s cell phone, which he threw into a toilet on a bathroom counter.
Investigators later collected the gunman’s laptop from his apartment, which was inside an oven that had been turned on at high temperature along with a can of butane.
The FBI is trying to recover data from both devices, which were damaged by Sapirman’s actions.
Ison said there is no known motive at this point in the investigation.
Relatives of Shapirman told police he showed no signs of being violent or unstable.
The 20-year-old had legally purchased the rifle he used in the March shooting and frequently visited a nearby shooting range, the family said.
The attack was the latest in a series of deadly mass shootings that have plagued the US and claimed the lives of many Americans.
Mass shooters have targeted schools, churches, grocery stores, a Fourth of July parade and now a mall in recent months – making almost no place safe for people just going about their daily lives.
