Kyle Busch and his family were at the Mall of America on Thursday when a shooting took place, and Kyle’s wife shared information about the matter on Instagram.
A gun was fired inside the Nike store following a “conflict between two groups at the cash registers … the conflict ended with one person pulling a gun and firing shots,” according to Fox 9.
The shooting sent mall visitors scurrying and fleeing in panic. The Mall of America then went into a lockdown as police responded to the shooting.
Coincidentally, NASCAR driver Busch happened to be at the mall at the time of the incident. He was riding rides with his son, while his wife Samantha was at a store. Kyle and his son Brexton were even captured on video by Andy Paras of Fox 55 exiting the mall.
On Instagram Friday, Samantha posted about the experience.
“We were at the @mallofamerica yesterday when a shooting happened,” Samantha wrote. “We had been spending the afternoon riding the rides in the center of the mall and then the girls split up to shop while the boys stayed for more rides. Then chaos ensued. I was standing at the entrance of H&M which is on floor 1 when I heard screaming from above. A group of people were running and yelling. My brain instantly thought it was just teenagers being goofy and then a split second later herds of people on levels 2 and 3 were running. Next a wave of people started down our corridor and that’s when I heard people shouting “active shooter in the mall”.
“You know the logical thing to do is run out the doors but with Kyle and Brexton still somewhere inside I froze where I was. Thank God when I called Kyle he answered as he and Brex were next in line for a ride and they didn’t know what was happening. We stayed on the phone with each other while the girls went running outside, getting as much distance from the mall as we could, and the boys made a beeline to the closet parking garage to get out of the building. People were crying, shouting on cell phones, sirens going off, everyone was confused and didn’t know what was happening, which was the scary part. You didn’t know if it was one person, multiple people, where exactly they were in the mall or outside too, where was it safe to go?
“We ended up finding out it was a dispute between two groups that ended in shots fired. It’s a lot to process as an adult but really hard as a parent to explain to your child what happened yesterday. Why it happened, what to do in a situation like that, what to do if it was another type of situation. How much do you cover without making it worse for them?
“Squeezing the family a little tighter today.”
The shooting did not lead to any deaths, and no serious injuries were reported.
NASCAR was at Indianapolis last weekend and is in Brooklyn, Michigan, this weekend. The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, is about nine hours away from the Michigan International Speedway.
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