Shooting at Spirit Halloween in California leaves at least one dead
By MADISON MALONE KIRCHER
Police were searching for a person who shot and killed a pregnant mother of four and injured six others at a Spirit Halloween in Northern California on Friday evening, local authorities said.
The shooting, which has rattled community members, occurred as shoppers clamored for last-minute costumes on the night before Halloween. A shooter opened fire inside the holiday store at the Solano Town Center mall in Fairfield, California.
When police officers arrived, they found seven victims with gunshot wounds, authorities said.
Constance Hages, 31, died from her injuries, the Fairfield Police Department said in a statement Saturday afternoon. She was pregnant, her family told detectives.
Two of Hages’ relatives, Chelaya Colbert and Charmaine Colbert, said in phone interviews that Hages had four children and had previously worked at San Francisco International Airport.
Chelaya Colbert also said Hages, her cousin, was pregnant when she died.
“I’d like to remember her as the happy lady she was,” Chelaya Colbert, who is 25 and lives in San Francisco, said. “She loved her kids.”
Hages’ mother, Capricia Colbert, declined to speak when reached by phone, asking to be left alone to grieve her daughter.
Three other victims, including two teenagers, remained in critical condition. An additional victim is in critical but stable condition, according to police. Two other victims were treated for gunshot wounds and have since been released from the hospital.
Janet Jacobo, 36, was shopping for a costume with her three sons, ages 6, 11 and 13, on Friday evening when she heard noises she believed to be gunshots, she said in a phone interview Saturday.
Jacobo, who lives in Fairfield, told her children to run and began searching for an exit, she said. The doors between the mall’s interior and the Halloween store were already closed for the evening she said, adding that another shopper was rallying people to break the gate open so they could get out of the store.
She fled, running alongside her elder sons and carrying her youngest child who she said was “terrified.” As they ran, she said she heard a woman scream.
Fairfield police did not offer any information about the identity of the victims or the potential suspect in what it called a “heartbreaking incident.” Police officials declined to answer additional questions when reached for comment but said police were working to confirm new details about the shooting.
“This is still a very active crime scene,” the statement said. “Detectives are speaking with witnesses and diligently working to identify the suspect responsible for this horrific shooting.”
The shooting appeared to have “stemmed from a targeted incident involving one suspect inside the Spirit Halloween store,” Fairfield police said in a statement Saturday, adding that officers were encouraging people in the area to “remain vigilant, look out for one another, and report any suspicious activity.”
The store remains closed, Lori Tesoro, a spokesperson for Spirit Halloween said in an email Saturday evening, adding that Spirit Halloween was cooperating with local law enforcement officials in the ongoing investigation.
Jacobo said she no longer plans to hand out candy this evening. She has tried to calm her 6-year-old son by telling him the shooting was just a “scary show at the Halloween store.”
There was also a shooting at a Spirit Halloween store in Madison Heights, Michigan, earlier Friday. A 21-year-old man shot another 21-year-old man multiple times in a “brief altercation” at the holiday store in the Detroit suburbs, Madison Heights police said in a statement.
The victim, who lived in Detroit, was taken to a hospital with serious injuries and later died. The two men were acquainted, police said in the statement. Police declined to answer further questions about the episode. The suspect in the Michigan shooting is in custody.
