No injuries after gunshot fired in Oak Park Mall on Sunday, Overland Park police say

Two people are in custody after a single gunshot was fired Sunday afternoon in the Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, police said. No one was injured.

At about 4:19 p.m. two detectives in plainclothes began to arrest two shoplifting suspects inside the mall near the food court, said Officer John Lacy, with the police department. One of the suspects ran away, and the other started fighting the two detectives, eventually grabbing one of their firearms.

“One of the suspects reached for the officer’s gun and fired a shot,” the Overland Park Police Department wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Thankfully, it did not hit anyone and no one was hurt. We took one suspect in custody in the mall and the other suspect shortly after that.”

Lacy said they don’t yet know where that bullet ended up, nor what store the theft was reported from.

Officers locked down the mall following the shooting. The shopping center is not expected to reopen until Monday.

An investigation is ongoing.

“Right now, we’re just happy that no one was injured,” Lacy said.

Ayanna Beale, 13, was standing near her mom’s kiosk, Taylor Made Luxury Melts, near the food hall and in front of Forever 21, when she noticed something was off.

“I heard people arguing, so I looked thinking I was going to see a fight, but I heard a gunshot,” she said. “Everybody ducked down and some people ran.”

She saw someone getting tackled, and then she joined the large crowd running away from the food court, tears soon pouring down her face as she tried to grasp what was happening.

Police quickly locked down stores and told everyone else to exit the mall near Dillards. They eventually arrested one suspect near the food court entrance and the other suspect near 95th Street.

Ayanna’s mother, Alishia Taylor, 40 was walking back from the restroom when the chaos broke out. Her youngest son, who is 10, lost his shoe as he ran to GameStop to take cover. Her older daughter was working at Panda Express at the time, and her older son was working at Lids.

“It was pretty scary because I can only call one kid at a time,” said Taylor, who had to find all four of her children at different places in the mall after the shooting.

Taylor said the fleeing crowd left chairs overturned an abandoned shopping bags, coats and strollers.

Sunday’s shooting was the second reported at a mall in the Kansas City metro this weekend. On Friday afternoon, Independence police said four people were wounded and three people were taken into custody in a shooting inside the Independence Center Mall.

“I was like ‘oh wow, that would never happen here.’ But it happened,” Ayanna said as she stood outside the police tape on Sunday evening, waiting to go back inside with her mother to collect their things.

Lacy said he brought his daughter shopping at the mall just two weeks ago and encourages families to continue stopping by.

The police department regularly has both officers in uniform and in plainclothes at the shopping center, in addition to mall security.

“I still feel that the Oak Park Mall is safe,” Lacy said.

This story was originally published November 12, 2023 at 6:14 PM.