Greenwood Park Mall shooting survivors retrieve belongings
GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) — Survivors of Sunday’s mass shooting said Tuesday, regaining their belongings is much easier than regaining their sense of safety.
When a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at the Greenwood Park Mall’s food court on Sunday, shoppers left hundreds of items behind as they ran for cover. Police said they recovered about 200 belongings within the crime scene. Survivors picked up those items at the Greenwood Police Department’s training center on Loews Boulevard on Tuesday.
Many of the survivors who came by were still trying to process what they had witnessed. Most did not wish to speak on camera. One woman who talked to News 8 but did not want to give her name said she, her husband and her in-laws were getting food and staying out of the rain when the shooting began.
“I saw everybody running for their lives, and I looked back and I saw my father-in-law struggling to run,” she said, adding she helped him get behind a pillar.
“We sat behind that pillar and heard a lot of screaming and then in my attempt to crawl over to my husband and my mother-in-law, I looked toward the bathroom and saw a man holding a handgun,” she said. “I believe that was Eli,” referring to Elisjsha Dicken.
A husband, his wife and another man died, and Dicken, 22, fired his Glock handgun 10 times to take out the 20-year-old shooter before more people were hurt, the Greenwood police chief said Monday. The three Indianapolis residents who died were Pedro Pineda, 56; Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37; and Victor Gomez, 30.
The woman told News 8 that she lost a couple of shopping bags and cellphone chargers. She got them back at the police station, though she said she would not have cared if she had not retrieved them. She said it was more important that she and her loved ones escaped unscathed. The woman said it will be some time before she feels safe going to a shopping mall again, especially Greenwood Park Mall.
Police said about 30 people came by to pick up items on Tuesday. If you lost something at the mall during the shooting, Greenwood police said they still have unclaimed belongings. You can reach them at 317-882-9191. Police also said mall security would have picked up items that were left outside the perimeter of the crime scene itself.
- Family remembers husband, wife who died in Greenwood Park Mall shooting
- Latino leaders shine light on people who died in Greenwood Park Mall shooting
- A walk inside the reopened Greenwood Park Mall after mass shooting
- Counselor: How communities can emotionally recover after mass shootings
- Counselor: Mass shootings are ‘shattering’ to communities once believed safe
Mental health resources
- Be Well Indiana
- Indiana Suicide Prevention
- Indiana Department of Child Services’ Children’s Mental Health Initiative
- National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988 or 800-273-8255
- More resources
