CONCORD, N.C. (AP) - Police in a suburban North Carolina city said on Sunday they’re still trying to identify and arrest who is responsible for the shooting death of a 13-year-old girl outside of a mall.
Concord Police identified the victim as Avenanna Propst of Concord, who authorities say died at the scene Saturday night. Two other male juveniles - ages 15 and 16 - suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to police statements.
Officers were responding to a call about a fight outside a Dave & Buster’s at Concord Mills mall when reports of gunfire followed, police said.
Concord Police on Sunday released still photos from security-camera video of someone they say displayed a firearm in the parking lot before the shooting. Witnesses say the male individual was soon seen discharging the weapon in the direction of Dave & Buster’s, according to a police news release.
“It’s highly unlikely this ‘person of interest’ went to the mall alone or is otherwise anonymous!” Concord Police Chief Gary Gacek said in a tweet from his department’s Twitter handle in seeking public assistance in the case.
Avenanna was an eighth-grader at A.C.E Academy Public Charter School in Harrisburg, and was expected to graduate from there soon.
“I feel like she didn’t deserve what she had to go through and she was in the place at the wrong time,” Laila Massey, one of Avenanna’s friends,toldWSOC-TV.
Concord is a suburb of Charlotte. Police had secured the mall’s perimeter late Saturday and directed parents where to pick up children nearby.
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