MINNEAPOLIS — A 19-year-old from St. Paul was the victim in the fatal shooting Friday at the Mall of America in a dispute between two groups of young men at Nordstrom, his sister wrote in a post for an online fundraiser.
Ja'Nayea Hudson, 22, said Johntae Hudson was "the most loving and caring person to his family and friends. He radiated positive and fun energy and his smile lit up the room." She said he was an "overall great person" and the family wants to give him "the funeral he deserves." The GoFundMe.com request had received more than $6,650 just after 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
On Saturday, Bloomington Police arrested five people in the shooting, and Chief Booker Hodges said all would be charged on suspicion of second-degree murder on Tuesday. The shooting occurred in Nordstrom late Friday night amid last-minute Christmas shoppers. The Mall of America then went into an hourlong lockdown.
The five teenagers were arrested by SWAT officers at a St. Louis Park home. Two are 18 years old and three are 17, Hodges said. He said one of the older men was the shooter but that another also may have fired. Police were still searching for a sixth suspect.
A tearful Hudson also spoke about her brother to KARE-11 TV on Christmas Eve, saying that he came to her room before he left for the mall to greet her and her son. "He was funny, sometimes quiet. … Everybody loved him, he was a people person, he was trying to get his own place, and apply for college," she said.
She told KARE-11 that he was going to the mall to find shoes to match a sweater for a friend's birthday gathering and that he had been trying to avoid certain groups of young men. "They got stuff going on, but he was trying to get away from all that."
Police say the two groups of young men were involved in a physical fight in Nordstrom, an anchor tenant of the mall, before the gunfire. But police have not explained the connection between the groups or the point of dispute.
"At first I just hoped like it was just like a minor bullet wound or something. I didn't think nothing too serious about it until like they said they were trying to find a pulse so I just assumed the worst but I was hoping for the best," Hudson told KARE-11 about receiving the call that her brother had been shot.
She urged others to "stay away from the wrong crowds because the wrong crowds is going to lead you to destruction."
In the past year, gun incidents have become a concern at the mall, one of the state's major tourist destinations.
A man was shot in the leg and another was grazed by a bullet on the mall's third floor last New Year's Eve. An 18-year-old later confessed to the shooting, telling police that he was trying to escape pursuers who were upset with him about an earlier incident before firing.
A few months later, the mall went into lockdown for two hours when a dispute between two groups of people ended with several gunshots outside a Nike store. No injuries were reported. Weeks after that, a man armed with a long gun robbed a Lids store in the mall before being tackled and arrested by authorities.
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(Star Tribune staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this report.)
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