TORONTO – Customers and employees returned Friday to a popular Toronto shopping mall, where a shot a day earlier caused a hectic evacuation, while the police continued to search for several suspects in the incident.
No one was injured in the gunfight at the Yorkdale Shopping Center on Thursday afternoon, but the expansive facility was closed when officers looked at the evidence area.
The police said an exchange between two groups of men in the shopping center led one man to fire a gun at least twice. The shooting ensured that panicked customers and store employees sought cover and hundreds eventually ran out of the big building.
Lime Pinga, manager at clothing store Maje, said the operations would be normal again Friday morning.
"We are reasonably good," he said, noting that his supervisor had told the employees that they could access advisory services through an outside company if necessary.
Pinga, who was not in the shopping mall at the time of the shooting, said that the team of employees who had been in the store during Thursday's incident had not worked on Friday morning.
Several buyers who were present in the mall at the time of the shootings, took to social media to express their gratitude to store employees who had helped them find shelter.
"A huge shoutout and thanks to the staff of #laduree on #Yorkdalemall", tweeted Nilab Ferozan. "Thank you for feeling calm and safe."
"Thanks to the employees @Bose #yorkdalemall because we could hide in their store, stay calm and share information, "wrote Jenna Keane.
Toronto police said they continued to ask someone with information about the shooting to contact them.
The incident of Thursday was the latest in a series of high-profile recordings in the city this year.
In July, two people were killed during a rampage in Toronto's Greektown, a month earlier two young girls were injured in a shooting at a playground and days later a woman died on her way from a funeral in a drive-by-shooting police called indicative of a "street gang subculture."
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