Exchange of gunfire inside Mall of Louisiana leaves 1 person dead and 5
wounded
[April 24, 2026]
By SARA CLINE
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An exchange of gunfire at a food court inside a
Louisiana mall on Thursday killed one person and wounded five others and
sent workers and shoppers scrambling for safety, police and witnesses
said.
Authorities described the shooting inside the Mall of Louisiana in Baton
Rouge as a confrontation between two groups of people and not a random
attack. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said some innocent
bystanders were struck by gunfire.
Police Chief TJ Morse said five people were in custody, and there was no
ongoing threat to the public.
“This was a disagreement, a fight, between two different groups of
people that we are still trying to unravel, and unfortunately innocent
victims got caught in the crossfire," Morse said in a news conference.
Three high school seniors from Ascension Episcopal School were among the
victims of the shooting, according to a Facebook post from Lafayette
Parish President Monique Blanco Boulet.
“We are heartbroken by the senseless violence that happened today at the
Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge,” she said, adding that she was asking
her community to “join us in holding all of these families close in
prayer.”
Rachel Delcambre, a spokesperson for the school, said in an email that
the school would not be giving additional information at this time “out
of deep respect for the families and the sensitivity of this situation.”
Authorities initially said as many as 10 people had been injured but
later revised that number. Morse did not immediately say what set off
the shooting at the mall in the Louisiana capital. He said police would
not release the names of victims until families have been notified.
Alex Theriot, a commercial electrician, was working on a construction
project in the mall a few hundred feet from the food court when gunfire
erupted and he heard what sounded like plates of glass shattering.
Thinking a shooter might be going store to store, he quickly screwed the
door shut of his work site and hunkered down with two other workers.
They waited and hoped for the best.
“Everybody was running and screaming,” Theriot told The Associated
Press. “I thought it could have been a terrorist attack.”
Desire Batton, who works at a clothing store, said she and other workers
dashed inside a breakroom to protect themselves.
“We hid in there until cops came and got us,” Batton said.
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People react after a mass shooting at the Mall of Louisiana,
Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Matthew
Hinton)
The shooting began around 1:30 p.m. when the two groups argued
inside the food court and started shooting at each other, Morse
said. An officer was already present at the mall and ran toward the
gunfire, he said. The chief made public appeals for witnesses to
come forward with any video of the shooting.
By late afternoon, dozens of police cars still were clustered in the
parking lot, multiple helicopters hovered overhead and armed
officers in bulletproof vests patrolled the area.
Mall spokesperson Lindsay Kahn called it a “frightening day” for
everyone there and said the mall would not reopen Thursday.
Kennedy Barnum, 22, said she had gone to the mall to get lunch at
the food court when she heard a woman on the phone outside say,
“I’ll call you back. There’s an active shooter in the mall.”
Within five minutes, Barnum said, law enforcement had swarmed the
mall. She saw people running and crying, including one girl she
described as “hysterical.”
“We spoke to a security guard there and she told us that there was
an active shooter there, people were shot and injured, and we should
leave immediately,” Barnum said.
It’s at least the second high-profile case of gun violence in
Louisiana this week. A father fatally shot eight children, including
seven of his own, in an attack on his family Sunday morning that
stretched across two houses in a Shreveport neighborhood, police
said. Two women, including the gunman’s wife who was the mother of
their children, were critically wounded.
___
Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans, Jim Mustian in
Natchitoches, Louisiana, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City
contributed.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
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