As Sapirman fired shots from a restroom in the mall’s food court, Elisjsha Dicken, 22, of Seymour, Indiana, fired 10 shots at Sapirman from his Glock pistol, preventing “many more” deaths, the chief said of Greenwood Police James Ison. press conference on Monday. “He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun — he was very good at it, very tactical and as he moved to approach the suspect, he also motioned for people to get behind him,” Eason said. “Many more people would have died last night had it not been for a responsible armed citizen who took action very quickly within the first two minutes of the shooting.” Dicken was legally armed, Ison said. The victims who were killed were identified as Indianapolis couple Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37, and Victor Gomez, 30, who is also from Indianapolis. Police on Monday were still looking for a motive in the shooting in Greenwood, about 15 miles south of Indianapolis. “The family members we talked to were just as surprised as everyone else,” Ison said. “They said there was no indication he was violent or unstable.” Sapirman had several minor juvenile offenses, including a fight at school, but no adult criminal record, Eason said. Family members told investigators he had resigned from a position at a warehouse in May, Ison said. The AR 15-style rifle was legally purchased March 8 in Greenwood, the police chief said. The second rifle was purchased on March 9, 2021, from a Greenwood gun store. There have been more than 350 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, including eight others that occurred on the same day as the mall shooting, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Like CNN, the file defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter. Mall surveillance video showed Sapirman entering the mall from the food court shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday. He went straight to a restroom located in the food court, where he stayed for a little more than an hour before emerging with a rifle, Ison said. Sapirman shot Gomez first, then pointed his rifle at the food court, where he fatally shot the Pinedes, who were eating dinner at the time of the shooting, Eason said. The gunman continued shooting in the food court, hitting a 22-year-old woman in the leg. A 12-year-old girl — identified by her mother, Alison Dick, as Bella — was struck by a bullet fragment that fell from a wall, Ison said. Dicken’s attorney, Guy A. Relford, said in a statement to CNN that his client is “a true American hero who saved countless lives during a horrific event that could have been much worse if not for his courage, preparedness and Eli’s willingness to protect the others.” Cases of armed bystanders attacking an active shooter are rare, according to data from Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training at Texas State University. There were at least 434 active shooter attacks in the US from 2000 to 2021, according to ALERRT data. Active shooter attacks were defined as those in which one or more shooters killed or attempted to kill multiple unrelated individuals in a populated area. Of those 434 active shooter incidents, an armed bystander shot the attacker in 22 of the incidents. In 10 of them, the “good guy” was a security guard or off-duty police officer, according to ALERRT data. According to a data analysis published by the New York Times, having armed people on the scene who are not members of law enforcement can create confusion and pose dire risks. An armed bystander who shot and killed an attacker in 2021 in Arvada, Colorado, for example, was shot and killed himself by police who mistook him for the gunman, the Times reported.
