Castleton Square mall’s second shooting in 5 years
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Trai Terrell was shot and killed inside Castleton Square mall Thursday, according to the Marion County Coroner’s Office. Police haven’t revealed who fired the gun or why.
Just before 6 p.m. Thursday, shoppers at Castleton Square mall heard multiple gunshots. Moments later 23-year-old Terrell was found suffering from apparent gunshot wounds just inside the mall’s entrance.
“I walked out the door and the whole parking lot was completely full of news cars, people standing around trying to figure out what’s going on,” Cody Johnson said. “The entire mall parking lot across the street was just filled with red and blue lights.”
Johnson works across the street from the mall.
Thursday night was the first shooting death on Castleton Square mall property as far as News 8’s records show. But this isn’t the first shooting at that mall. Back in January 2015, a large fight broke out inside the mall and shots were fired, but nobody was hurt.
There have been other shootings nearby, but not on mall property. Across the street on 82nd Street, two teens were shot during a cell phone sale in 2018. At the Long John Silver’s across the street, a 13-year-old was shot and killed in 2017.
As of Friday afternoon, Simon Property Group, who owns the Castleton Square mall, has not responded to our requests for a statement. All we received was an auto reply about the mall’s COVID-19 measures.
Police say the investigation is still underway and they ask anyone with information to call the homicide tip line .
Police were able to speak to a few people who were at the mall when the fatal shooting of Terrell took place, like Sean Esters. Esters was in the mall during the shooting but doesn’t think it’s something to worry about.
“I mean, I was in the food court. So I wasn’t fearing for my life,” Esters said. “I didn’t think somebody was just randomly running through shooting through the mall. I figured it was an isolated situation.”
Police say this was not a random shooting and that the shooter probably knew Terrell. Police said they have multiple people in custody, but they haven’t said if any arrests have been made.
