Police in South Carolina have announced the arrest of a second person connected to a shootout inside a busy shopping mall in the state's capital, one of two mass shootings that rocked the state over the Easter holiday weekend.
Columbia Police Chief W.H. “Skip” Holbrook on Monday said police have arrested Marquise Love Robinson, 20. Authorities are also seeking a third suspect, Amari Sincere-Jamal Smith. Both men face charges of attempted murder and nine counts of aggravated assault and battery.
Nine people were shot and another six injured in the rush to exit Columbiana Centre in Columbia, authorities said, with no fatalities reported. Holbrook said one person remained in the intensive care unit Monday.
Police said they did not believe the shooting was a random attack and that the three identified suspects knew each other.
The first person arrested in the shooting, 22-year-old Jewayne M. Price, was one of three people initially detained by law enforcement as a person of interest. Price’s attorney, Todd Rutherford, told news outlets Sunday that his client fired a gun at the mall, but in self-defense. Rutherford said Price faces a charge of unlawfully carrying a pistol because he legally owned his gun but did not have a permit to carry a weapon.
Columbia police said on Twitter that a judge agreed Sunday to let Price leave jail on a $25,000 surety bond. He was to be on house arrest with an ankle monitor, police said.
Authorities are also investigating a second mass shooting that struck the state over the weekend.
At least nine people were shot early Sunday at Cara's Lounge in Hampton County, according to South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division. No one was reported killed in the violence at the nightclub.
