COLUMBIA, S.C. — Outside of a Columbia mall, Raquel Eaddy’s hands trembled to the point that she couldn’t call her mom to tell her she was okay after running from gunfire.
On Saturday, at least one gunman opened fire at Columbiana Centre mall in the Harbison area of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, the Columbia Police Department said. Twelve people were hurt in the shooting and the chaos that followed. Ten of those people were hit by bullets, and another two were hurt as people raced for exit doors. Two of the shooting victims were in critical but stable condition, the department said. The police had three “people of interest” detained.
Witnesses described what had been a joyful day inside the mall with pleasant shopping, dining in the food court, enjoying their time with colleagues and children getting photos taken with the Easter bunny. Then the atmosphere turned to madness as shots reverberated through hallways and stores.
“It was one of the most horrific things ever,” Eaddy said. She said she was “still numb” when she spoke with The State early Saturday evening.
Inside stores
Eaddy was working at Aldo, a shoes and apparel store. She was having a nice shift with her colleague and sharing pleasantries with customers as she finalized their purchases at the checkout counter.
“We were really enjoy the day,” she said.
About 2 p.m., she and hundreds of others heard what was described by at least three people as about 10 percussive “pops.”
Eaddy said she has heard guns before, but these shots “were so loud.”
“The gunshots sounded like they were literally a store down,” she said. Her instincts revved up and told her to “run and get somewhere far.”
She, her colleagues and the customer scattered, frantically searching for the nearest way out of the mall. She fell and “busted” her knees as she fled out the store’s back door, Eaddy said.
The shock was still raw Saturday evening.
“It was traumatizing.”
Casey Poole, 25, of Columbia said he was with two of his friends inside the Buckle store where he was making a purchase. He and the cashier heard a sound for five to 10 seconds and thought it was raining.
“That’s when I saw everyone running for the (mall) exit,” Poole said.
Buckle employees inside acted quickly and locked their store doors to keep customers from going back into the mall.
“They (the employees) reacted very well and under control and locked it up really quick,” Poole said.
About 10 minutes later, Poole left the store through the emergency exit in the back of the store, which led to the parking lot and saw one or two people taken away on stretchers.
Shopping with family
Cindy Paris Rectenwald and her daughter Rachel were in the food court when a shooter began to fire inside the mall.
They said it sounded like a rapid series of pops. They thought it was rain hitting the glass roof. They saw people running toward them.
The shots sounded like they came from an area just beyond the food court and toward some stores.
People were “screaming and yelling” as they ran for the exit doors in the food court, Rectenwald said.
Rectenwald and her daughter jumped up and fled with the crowd. The firing had stopped. Rectenwald got under a table for a moment. Rachel lost her mom for a moment but beckoned her to “come on” when she saw her under the table. They made it outside and into their car.
They said the gun sounded like an automatic weapon. The shots were extremely quick and there wasn’t a sound of reloading.
Kristin Truesdale was with her sister-in-law walking toward the food court when she hear about 10 “super loud” pops.
“Everyone was ducking and running so I did the same and we ran into Express and they shoved us all in the back of the store,” she said.
She saw that a woman had been shot in the shoulder, Truesdale said.
Inside the store, they hid in the back room for five to 10 minutes before being escorted out a back door.
Outside, she ran to her car, Truesdale said.
A woman screaming
Sandra Dotson Evans, 49, was inside Versona, a women’s clothing store, with her 19-year-old daughter when she heard the shots ring out. The air became thick with the smell of gun smoke. The mother and daughter hid in the store.
She heard banging at a certain point. Police were knocking on store fronts, searching for people, Evans said.
After about an hour of sheltering in place, police came into the store and escorted her and others out through the food court.
The food court was “eerie,” Evans said.
Food was still on tables, drinks were spilled everywhere. Shoes were abandoned on the floor. A woman who looked to be in her 20s had her ankle wrapped and was in a wheelchair being pushing by medical providers.
Evans also heard screaming.
And older woman who Evans estimated was in her 60s was in a wheelchair with medical providers. She was screaming and had blood around her stomach.
It wasn’t the elderly woman’s blood, Evans guessed. The way the woman was sitting in the wheelchair didn’t indicate physical pain. But here screams sounded like emotional torment, according to Evans
“I think she was just traumatized,” Evans said.
‘It was likely to happen at some point’
University of South Carolina seniors Aidan Thomason, 21, and Donna Birdsong, 22, were inside the Altar’d State store looking for dresses to wear to celebrate their graduation next month.
The women’s clothing store was crowded with families looking for clothes to celebrate Easter or upcoming graduations.
Then the two college students heard shouting and thought it was arguments over the wait for a dressing room. But people were starting to run out of the fitting room.
“Moms were like, ‘Leave your stuff and go,’” said Thomason, who actually evacuated the building wearing a dress she was trying on.
Thomason left her shoes and clothes she wore to the mall behind in the dressing room in the rush to leave the store through the back emergency exit.
“Employees were ushering everyone back through this back hallway that went out to the parking lot,” Birdsong said. “I was impressed with how immediately they knew what to do. They were definitely guiding the crowd pretty well.”
When they got outside of the mall, they saw people crying and hugging one another, and some people hiding in bushes for safety rushed to their cars.
Before the shooting, Thomason and Birdsong had stopped at the food court to get a drink right before going into the store.
“We had talked about stopping in the food court, getting something to eat, or going into this store for a little bit longer,” Birdsong said. “It’s really interesting to see how each little decision played out to where we were lucky enough to be right next to a back exit.”
The two students grew up in an age when active shooter drills were part of their safety training.
“This is something we have thought about for so long. Growing up going through middle and high school, this is something that was always kind of on my mind whenever I was at school and even throughout college, just big groups of people in closed spaces,” Birdsong said. “Frankly, it was likely to happen at some point that we would live through an active shooter incident, and just when it would happen would be the question.”
‘It was a zoo’
Justin Smith was just pulling up to the mall not long after 2 p.m. with his young daughter in the car. As they circled toward the back side of the mall, they started seeing people running and into the parking lots near a department store. He asked someone what was going on.
The person said, “Please don’t go in there.” He was told a shooting happened near the food court.
“It was a zoo” outside the mall as police and paramedics rushed to the scene, Smith said. It took them 20 minutes to get out of the area of the mall.
Cindy Rectenwald saw the emergency responders showing up as they left the area.
Back at their home, Rectenwald said she and her daughter were “pretty shaken up” after the shooting.
The shooting “was like something that’d you see in a movie,” she said.
Eaddy shared that sentiment.
“It’s one of those things you see in the movie,” she said. “But you never want to see in person.”
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