Deputy recounts chasing shooter from Penn Square
As he ran out of the doors of AMC Movie Theater at Penn Square to the sound of gunshots, Lt. Justin Ki mb rough unholstered his gun and saw people fleeing in all directions.
One person alerted Kim brough, who was wearing his black Oklahoma County sheriff's department uniform while working off-duty for AMC Theaters, that the shooter was running toward them all food court.
“That's the shooter,” Ki mb rough said he remembered hearing.
The deputy spotted the person, who he described as a young, black male, yelled f or him to stop and took off in pursuit.
Racing through the mall, Kimbrough yelled for people to take cover or run while ch asin gt he suspect who escaped down the escalator toward the south entrance of the mall.
Following behind, Ki mb roughs printed downstairs past Dillards and Auntie Anne's pretzel before reaching the parking lot.
People were racing around and fleeing in all directions. Kimbrough said he searched the parking lot for five or six minutes but had lost sight of them an. He returned back to AMC to check and see if there were any injuries.
“It was chaos ,” Kimbrough said. “Your adrenaline gets running but you know once I saw the guy and they said he was the shooter, my job was to attempt to stop him or at l east be able to give information to where he went.”
No person has been arrested in the shooting at Penn Square Mall on Saturday, the second shooting inside the mall in the past month.
Oklahoma City Police said the shooting happened just after 8 p.m. after mall security reported seeing two men arguing outside the movie theater on the second floor of the mall.
According to the police report, one of the men then tried to walk away from the fight which is when the shooter followed him and physically assaulted the other man.
Mall security told police they were about to step in when the attack er pulled a gun from his waistband and fired three to four shots before running away.
Oklahoma City police said no one was shot, but one person was treated for injuries suffered from shrapnel.
The shooter has not been caught, police said.
Sheriff P. D. Taylor said the response of his deputy helped to let people know the shooter had left the mall and was on the run. In the shooting at Penn Square in late December, the mall was on lockdown for hours while law enforcement searched room by room looking for the shooter.
“If they though the was still in the mall that changes everything ,” Taylor said. “That adds several hours of searching and trying to find someone and there's a million places to hide in that mall. So it was a huge benefit to the investigation to know that the guy had excited that mall.”
Kimbrough said he's had people come up to him while working his off-duty side job at the movie theater to say thanks.
“I don't feel like I did a ton,” Kimbrough said. “But I also believe that my presence and yelling for him to stop most definitely caused him to flee.
“He knew it was law enforcement that was chasing him.”