9-year-old among Target shoppers stabbed before guard stops attack, CA cops say
Don Sweeney
Wed, November 16, 2022, 7:50 AM
A man who armed himself with a butcher knife for sale stabbed a 9-year-old boy and another shopper at a Target store in downtown Los Angeles, California police reported.
A store security guard
shot and killed the man at 6:20 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the store near Figueroa and 7th Streets, Chief Michel Moore said at a news briefing, as shared by ABC7 on YouTube.
“It’s a troubling night with Los Angeles here — to see this type of violence in our city,” Moore said.
After picking up the knife, the 40-year-old man told a 9-year-old boy “he was going to stab him and kill him,” Moore said. The boy, who had become separated from his mother in the store, tried to walk away.
The man “without any further provocation” stabbed the child from behind, Moore said. Other shoppers came to his aid while the attacker moved away.
“I saw the
kid who was stabbed stumble his way towards me,” Target employee Justin Orkin told KNBC. “As he was doing that, the guy was running the other way, running away.”
The man encountered two shoppers in an aisle and “brutally” stabbed a 25-year-old woman in the chest, Moore said. Others pulled the injured woman into a pharmacy and closed the gate.
“You can imagine the mayhem that was going on,” Moore said. Another woman was trampled by shoppers fleeing the store.
The man moved to the front of the store, where an armed security guard confronted him, Moore said. The guard shot him in the stomach.
Los Angeles police already in the shopping center on another call responded to the Target and took the man into custody, but he later died.
Moore described the knife as being 9 to 10 inches long, “kind of a butcher knife.”
The 9-year-old and 25-year-old stabbed in the attack were listed
in critical condition, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Police have not released the identity of the attacker and are investigating the incident, KNBC reported.
