Del Amo Fashion Center shooting may be gang-related, police say – Daily Breeze

The shooting at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance on Tuesday night, December 14, which left three people injured, was likely the result of a confrontation between members of two gangs, authorities said on Wednesday, December 15.

One of the three who was shot suffered a contusion to the head, Sergeant Torrance. said Mark Ponegalek. All victims were 17 years or older and were expected to survive.

It was not immediately known whether more than one suspect fired a gun. The injured victims appeared to be in one gang while the shootings came from another, police said.

“These are two groups that show up at the mall and they run into each other,” said Ponegalek. “There was a confrontation in the parking lot that led to the shooting.”

Police were called at about 6:35 p.m. Tuesday and arrived within two minutes of the parking lot outside BJ’s Restaurant on the east side of the mall north of Carson Street, Ponegalek said.

In the parking lot, police found bullet casings and multiple witnesses told officers they heard gunshots.

After the shooting, three or four suspects fled south across Carson Street and then hijacked others outside the Dave & Busters restaurant and game center, on the south side of the mall, and fled in the victim’s silver Chevrolet SUV, Ponegalek said.

The victim of the carjacking, a man, was not injured, the sergeant said.

For the holiday shopping season that begins on Black Friday, the Police Department assigns four officers to the mall per shift when the mall opens — a strategy that allows officers to respond quickly on Tuesday evenings, Ponegalek said.

“Every holiday season, we increase security,” he said.

The department has a substation at the mall for officers to write reports, but it is not always manned, Ponegalek said.

Tuesday’s shooting did not appear to have affected the flow of holiday shoppers on Wednesday, as many cars were in the parking lot by early morning.

The shooting was the first at the Del Amo Fashion Center since June 2019, when an 18-year-old Bellflower man shot another man in the neck inside a mall near the Build-A-Bear Workshop and athletic wear store Finish Line.

The suspected gang member was found and arrested on Redondo Beach later that month and eventually received a nine-year prison sentence after pleading no contest for attempted murder.