Oak Park Mall shooting leaves police searching for both suspect and victims

Overland Park police were looking for both a suspect and victims after a shooting Friday night at Oak Park Mall that shook up shoppers and mall workers.

After the mall closed and everyone had cleared out, police spokesman Officer John Lacy said officers had found blood stains near a bathroom inside the mall and believed at least one or possibly two people had been hit, but neither the suspect nor the victim or victims were found.

“We searched the mall area and we can tell you there is nobody inside the mall that was associated with this,” Lacy said.

Lacy said police were looking for an African-American male driving a red pickup.

The shooting occurred just outside the doors to the food court.

Manny Vasquez, from Olathe, was cooking in the back of the Panda Express when he heard four or five shots and glass falling. Then people were running.

“I never thought it would happen here, especially in the mall,” Vasquez said. “It’s crazy.”

Eight-year-old Marcedes Martinez was sitting at a table in the food court while her dad and sister ordered food when the shots rang out and she saw the glass exterior door shatter.

She ran to a nearby bathroom while her father, Jose Martinez rushed to protect her.

“All I could think of was ‘Get to my daughter,’” said Jose Martinez, whose family lives in Kansas City, Kan.

When it was safe to come out, they immediately began looking for Maria Martinez, Jose’s wife, who was shopping for a dress for a quinceanera party this weekend.

“We were crying because I didn’t know where she was and I thought she was taken or shot,” Marcedes said.

The family was reunited in the parking lot outside the food court, where a half-dozen police cars were stationed with lights flashing.

Eric McDonough and his wife were heading toward the food court when the shooting happened.

“All of a sudden we hear three loud bangs, but it sounded to us like basically a big sign crashing,” McDonough said. “We just sort of stopped in our tracks and were like ‘what the heck was that?’ Then we start seeing people from the food court running to us in a big crowd and there was some screaming, so we pretty much figured out what was happening and turned around immediately and with a whole big crowd of people we bolted toward Dillards and just ran as hard as we could.”

McDonough and the others took shelter in a Target across the parking lot and hunkered down for about an hour, monitoring social media for updates before they decided it was safe to go to their cars.

He said people fled in as orderly a fashion as possible, given the circumstances, and he didn’t see anyone trampled or otherwise injured.

It was the second time in 10 days that McDonough’s pregnant wife, Sannah, found herself fleeing from gunshots. She works on the Country Club Plaza and was out walking when a gunman fired several shots there on the afternoon of Oct. 16.

The McDonoughs, from Belton, said they go to Oak Park Mall “all the time.” Eric McDonough said the shooting wouldn’t necessarily keep them away in the future, but it had changed the experience.

“It’s definitely something that we’ll think about every time we go there now,” Eric McDonough said.

Ruben Olivares was working at Chipotle with a new employee on Friday and said he didn’t think she would be back to work.

“She told us ‘this is honestly my last day,” Olivares said. “First and last day.’”

This story was originally published October 26, 2018 at 11:36 PM.