5 Women Dead In Chicago Area Mall Shooting

No Motive Has Been Determined In The Attack; Hunt For Suspect Continues

(CBS/AP)  Five females were shot to death inside a suburban Chicago clothing store Saturday, sparking a manhunt that included a store-by-store search for an "offender" who vanished from the area.

Tinley Park Police Sgt. T.J. Grady said officers responding to a 911 call of a shooting at the Brookside Marketplace at about 10:45 a.m. found the victims inside a Lane Bryant store.

Grady said the store was open at the time of the shootings, but declined to say whether the victims were customers or employees. He gave no ages and said authorities are still trying to reach the victims' families.

Two large county vans backed up to the front of the building Saturday afternoon and a white canopy was placed over the front of the building.

Earlier, Grady said the shooter apparently had left the cluster of stores off Interstate 80 in the suburbs southwest of downtown Chicago.

"No motive has been established," Grady said. "Every store was immediately canvassed and a search by air too has given us every indication that the offender has left the scene."

Grady said police are looking for a black man about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 230 to 260 pounds. They said the man was wearing a black waist-length winter coat, a black cap and black jeans.

Police were allowing some shoppers into parts of the strip mall Saturday afternoon, but had cordoned off the Lane Bryant store.

CBS News affiliate WBBM reports that witnesses said police locked down neighboring stores in the center and searched the stores with guns drawn.

"We kind of like didn't know what was going on," said Mike Jones, an employee of the Taco Bell adjacent to the retail store told the affiliate. "They told us to evacuate where we were."

Tracy Caccavella was shopping at a Pet Smart store late Saturday morning across the parking lot from the Lane Bryant when she saw police enter the pet supply store.

"Six police entered the store with their hands on their gun holsters," Caccavella said.

Police conducted a thorough search and left, she said.

The Cook County Sheriff's Department was helping with the investigation, providing a helicopter and K-9 patrol unit Saturday, said spokeswoman Penny Mateck.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations in Chicago had not been contacted Saturday afternoon to assist in the search for the shooter.

Messages left at Lane Bryant Brand headquarters were not immediately returned.

The small red and brown brick Lane Bryant is part of a cluster of four or five stores isolated on one side of a large blacktop parking lot, with big box stores including Target and a Best Buy several hundred yards away.

Police taped off the small complex of stores adjoining the Lane Bryant and would not allow anyone within a few hundred yards. Dozens of officers gathered by the store's glass front doors. Detectives could be seen going in and out of the Lane Bryant while a police helicopter hovered overhead.

The strip mall skirts a major section of Interstate 80 with a Holiday Inn perched nearby at one highway exit. No houses are in immediate area and a few apartment buildings are about a half-mile away.

WBBM reports that violent crime this this suburb south of Chicago is very rare. There has only been one murder in the past eight years, and that was in 1999.

[erasmus6]

"Why is it that the places with the strictest gun control laws also have a high rate of crime?" posted by gunownerdan

We have strict gun control and our gun crime is lower than yours. Now when you are talking about a couple of yours states having strict gun control and them still having high crime, can you not figure that one out?
With the rest of your country having guns, it ain''t hard for the people in that state to go next door to the next state and get one! It isn''t like they have to cross a border crossing where there is an inspection.

It is just like how a school or whatever is classified as a gun free zone. I have never heard of anything so stupid in my life. Do they really thing that if every Tom, ******** and Harry can carry a gun, that they will refrain from having it there? What a joke!

[bleem3]

I hope they catch that monster. And when they do, I bet he already has a rap sheet a mile long. But liberals let him out loose on society.

[gunownerdan]

"The reason is the economic and educational status of the people in DC is lower than those in Virginia"
Posted by schoollord


You mean the reason isn''t just guns?
Since Virginia is so flooded with guns you would think they would have a very high crime rate but they don''t.
Without lies, stereotypes, generalizations, and falsehoods, schoollord would have very little to talk about.

[gunownerdan]

schoollord, why do you always say it takes a MAN to protect themselves from an unarmed criminal?
Women get attacked every single day.
Do you think a 100lb woman is supposed to fight off a 200lb criminal with only her bare hands?
That won''t work and you know it.

[gunownerdan]

Why does Washington DC with its strict gun laws have a MUCH higher crime rate than Arlington Va. which does not have strict gun laws and is right across the river from DC?

[gunownerdan]

Why is it that the places with the strictest gun control laws also have a high rate of crime?
Washington DC and Chicago are two examples.
And by the way, if a criminal is unarmed they can still be very dangerous and they can still kill or seriously injure someone.
The supreme court has already ruled that the police are not required to protect citizens from harm.
Even if you do call 911, it can take them many minutes to show up.
The only way people can stay safe is if they are capable of protecting themselves.
a-human-right.com

[rudy654-2009]

A comparison with Canada:

2005 in Canada there were 658 homicides. That was 2.04 homicides per 100,000.

2005 in US there were 16,692 homicides. That was 5.6 homicides per 100,000.

Also in the US in 2004 over 16,000 suicides were committed with the use of firearms.

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by RowdyTExan2 at 11:05 PM

Would you mind posting the relative facts about a comparison in homicides in the US with Canada?

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by erasmus6 at 08:12 PM : Feb 03, 2008

Still spilling that krap about how safe Canada is, when it''s homocide rate is not that much lower per capita than the US????

Give me a break!

[rowdytexan2]

I am a female who has guns. Mine resides in my purse or a locked compartment in my car when I''m not travelling in it. Never felt a need for it to protrude for any part of my body.

It still remains a fact that people kill people, not guns. It is scientifically impossible for a gun to kill someone by itself.

My family has had guns for as long as I can remember and not one of them killed somebody with a gun, nor have I.

Unfortunately, my father was killed by a DRUNK DRIVER when I was 20 years old. His death was just as final and lethal as an assault with a gun. Now do I think we should ban cars? There are as many crazy people driving around in cars.

Crazy people kill people, not guns or cars or any inanimate object.