One person is dead and two others are injured after a shooting inside a south Dallas shopping center.
Investigators say one of the people injured is in custody.
Crime scene tape kept onlookers a good distance away from the Big T Plaza shopping center Saturday.
For people inside this afternoon, their focus was just getting away.
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Brigette Yaimpir-Walker works in a hair-braiding shop in the Oak Cliff shopping center where most of the businesses are inside the mall-like plaza.
“You know when you see the people running, you don’t know what’s happened so you just have to run,” Yaimpir-Walker said.
Yaimpir-Walker said she hid in another business until officers said it was safe to come out.
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Dallas Police say three people were shot Saturday inside the plaza in the 4500 block of Village Fair Drive.
One of those people did not survive.
Investigators say two others were injured, including the suspected shooter, who officers arrested on scene.
Dallas councilmember Carolyn King Arnold says one violent act may work against what’s been a big-picture positive year of reduced violent crime citywide and in her southern Dallas District 4.
“The community can be at rest because they don’t have to worry about whether or not somebody is running through the neighborhood trying to get away from the Dallas Police Department,” Arnold said.
Arnold said her primary concern Saturday was both the emotional and potential financial toll the violence has on small business owners inside the plaza.
“Some of them are traumatized,” Arnold said. “Some of them may be thinking in terms of ‘where do I go from here, is this the only place I can have my business’.”
Walker says those are not thoughts she is holding onto tonight, saying she plans to be back at work at her hair business on Sunday.
“I mean, it’s a little bit insecure but it’s not only here,” Yaimpir-Walker said. “It happens everywhere.”
DPD investigators have not released a motive but describe this deadly shooting as an isolated incident.
Please check back as this is a developing story.
