Suspect in L.A. Target shooting is taken into custody

The suspect in the shooting of two workers at a Target store in downtown Los Angeles was taken into custody late Tuesday afternoon after barricading himself in a building near the scene for several hours as police tried to make an arrest, officials said.

The man, whose name has not been released, was inside a building in the 1200 block of West Ingraham Street and believed to be armed, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The standoff began at 11:38 a.m., and the suspect was taken into custody at 4:52 p.m., said police spokesperson Tony Im. No information was immediately available about the suspect’s condition or charges.

The barricade situation came less than 24 hours after the Monday night shooting of two Target employees. The suspect was confronted outside the store for allegedly shoplifting.

The shooting incident began around 8:55 p.m. Monday in the 700 block of Figueroa at the Figat7th shopping mall — just a 12-minute walk from the building where the suspect was barricaded. The long-haired man, wearing a do-rag and a purple scarf, was confronted outside the store after he had stuffed more than $1,000 worth of merchandise into a briefcase he was carrying, said LAPD Capt. Raul Jovel during a news conference earlier Tuesday.

When the suspected shoplifter was confronted by security, he opened fire “indiscriminately,” Jovel said. An armed guard returned fire, and at least 10 shots total were fired during the mayhem, according to police.

Two Target workers were wounded in the gunfight. One — a loss prevention officer — remained in critical condition on Tuesday, police said. The second employee, the armed security guard, was treated and released from the hospital Tuesday morning.

The shooting occurred while shoppers were still in the area, and chaos ensued, witnesses said. Some of the walls were pocked with bullet holes, according to police.

“[It was] extremely loud, extremely traumatic,” said Judith Conway in an interview with KABC. “We all just started running towards the back. We were guided by … one of the cashiers. … We heard several rounds go off, and we just pretty much ran towards the back and just left our items in the cart, and just tried to do the best that we could to get to safety.”

Another shopper didn’t realize they were gunshots at first.

“Everybody was kind of, you think it’s a firework; you don’t assume the worst immediately. Then, there’s like six more shots pretty quickly,” witness Lucas Williams told KNBC. “Nobody really looked back because you could kind of hear bullets whisking by us. We just started running up the stairs. The main thing I remember is there was a little girl next to me and just seeing her family picking her up and running off.”

The mall told broadcast stations in a statement it was troubled by the incident and was working with police in their investigation.

The downtown Los Angeles Target was the scene of a brutal stabbing in 2022, when a homeless man attacked a 9-year-old boy and a 25-year-old woman.

The attacker was fatally shot by a third-party security guard at the store. Target increased security at the location after that attack, according to ABC.