The suspected gunman was caught by officials on Saturday, Sergeant Mark Francis tweeted, and has been confirmed by Skagit County Department of Emergency Management.
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Cetin was reportedly arrested around 7:00 p.m. local time Saturday night (0200 GMT on Sunday), less than 24 hours after the mall shooting.
The suspect, 20-year-old Arcan Cetin, allegedly fled the Cascade Mall after the deadly shooting at Macy’s.
The suspect in a shooting at a Washington state mall that left five dead is in custody, authorities said Saturday.
As for the motive, sources say Cetin’s ex-girlfriend use to work at the Macy’s where the shooting happened.
Up to late yesterday, the search was continuing for a gunman who police said killed five people in a Washington state mall.
Sarai Lara’s mother said she had survived cancer as a young girl and was a happy student.
The shooting had devastated the small northern Washington town, its mayor told the Herald yesterday afternoon as authorities hunted the killer. The nearest city is Mount Vernon. “It came to our little community”, Sexton said. “This is a senseless act”. Police said the gun was later recovered at the mall.
Police first said Cetin is Hispanic, but according to his Facebook page, Cetin is originally from Turkey. A man who was wounded in the shooting died early Saturday, officials said.
Police did not confirm that account.
She drove home, but said she had to pull over.
“I’m nervous. I don’t know if we’ll be going back there”.
Residents of the town of about 8,600 turned to each other for comfort at a community gathering in a city park. Cammock could not say if there was a connection between the suspect and any of the victims.
Nineteen-year-old Joanne Burkholder was watching the movie “The Magnificent Seven” in a theater at the Cascade Mall on Friday night when police and security came in and told them they needed to evacuate.
Workers there herded customers into a restroom when the shooting started.
She says Sarai went to Macy’s looking for trousers. State patrol is actively searching the shooter and other suspects. Police told reporters nothing is yet known about Cetin’s possible motive but they were not ruling out anything, including terrorism.
“She was a strong girl, she told me a lot about her life and I trusted her with everything”, the unnamed individual told the station.
More than 200 officers from more than two dozen agencies responded and painstaking searched the over 400,000-square-foot mall.
“I’m just very thankful for my life this morning”.
“I turn around and run to the store. I just moved them into the store”, he added. “We are working closely with local law enforcement authorities as the investigation continues to unfold”. A blurry surveillance photo of a rifle-toting man inside the mall offered a big lead that authorities relied on in the hunt for the shooter. They did, however, say Cetin had been arrested once in the past year for simple assault.
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“I don’t know what his motivation was”, Cammock said. “It would be speculation”. “It’s too scary”, she said referring to the mall.
