A Friday-night shopping trip for last-minute Halloween costumes turned into a mass shooting in Fairfield, California, when a gunman opened fire inside the Spirit Halloween store at the Solano Town Center mall at about 8:30 p.m. on October 30, killing a 31-year-old woman and wounding six other people, Fairfield police said. The suspect was still at large on Saturday, and detectives were reviewing video from the mall to identify him.
Source: KION Central Coast (CNN)
Police on Saturday identified the woman who died as Constance Hages, 31. Her family told detectives that Hages was pregnant when she was killed. Police were careful to say that detail is not yet confirmed: the Solano County Coroner will have to verify it after an examination, and no official confirmation had been issued as of the department's Saturday update.
The wounded: three critical, one stable, two already home
All six wounded victims are male, and their ages run from 16 to 43. Three of them — aged 16, 19 and 32 — remained in critical condition on Saturday. A 23-year-old man was seriously injured but in stable condition. Two others, aged 19 and 43, were treated for gunshot wounds and released from hospital. In line with minor-safety practice, the 16-year-old is identified by age only. Officers who reached the mall on Friday night found victims at three locations around the shopping centre, Fairfield Police Chief Dan Marshall told reporters at a late-night news conference.
Fairfield is a city of Solano County on the Interstate 80 corridor, about 45 miles northeast of San Francisco, between the Bay Area and Sacramento. Solano Town Center, on Travis Boulevard, is the city's main enclosed mall, with about 130 stores and restaurants — and on the night before Halloween it was full of families making final costume and candy runs.
“A targeted incident” — but the shooter has not been caught
In its Saturday morning update, the Fairfield Police Department said that, based on preliminary information, the shooting “stemmed from a targeted incident involving one suspect” inside the Spirit Halloween store. That wording matters: police are not describing a random attack on shoppers at large, but they have not named the suspect, described a motive, or said who inside the store may have been the intended target. “This is still a very active crime scene. Detectives are speaking with witnesses and diligently working to identify the suspect responsible for this horrific shooting,” the department said in its statement posted around midnight on Friday night.
The FBI's Sacramento field office has deployed its Evidence Response Team to help Fairfield police process the scene and the video evidence. Detectives are reviewing footage from the store and the wider mall “to identify the individual responsible for this heinous act of violence,” the department said. As of the latest police update on Saturday, no arrest had been announced and no suspect description had been released to the public.
Anyone who was at Solano Town Center on Friday night, or who has information or video about the shooting, is asked to contact the Fairfield Police Department at 707-428-7600 or email 1030mall@fairfield.ca.gov.
The mall stayed open — but Halloween did not happen there
Solano Town Center stayed open on Saturday, but it cancelled the “Mall-O-Ween” trick-or-treating event it had planned for Halloween, citing the shooting, the Associated Press reported. Spirit Halloween said the Fairfield store would not reopen for the rest of the season, out of respect for the victims. For Solano County families — including the area's Punjabi and other South Asian communities, for whom the I-80 corridor malls are everyday shopping ground — the practical effect was immediate: the region's biggest Halloween retail stop was a crime scene on the holiday itself.
What is solid
- Fairfield police say seven people were shot inside the Spirit Halloween at Solano Town Center at about 8:30 p.m. on Friday, October 30; Constance Hages, 31, died and six males aged 16 to 43 were wounded, three of them critically.
- Police describe a targeted incident involving one suspect, no arrest had been announced as of Saturday, and the FBI's Sacramento Evidence Response Team is assisting.
What is only claimed
- Hages's family told detectives she was pregnant. Police say the Solano County Coroner still has to confirm that after an examination — it is a family account, not yet an official finding.
- Early reports differed on the 23-year-old victim's condition (described in some as critical but stable, in the police update as seriously injured and stable); this report follows the Fairfield police wording.
The second Spirit Halloween shooting that same day
Hours earlier on the same Friday, a separate shooting inside a Spirit Halloween store in Madison Heights, Michigan, killed a 21-year-old Detroit man after an argument with another man he knew; the alleged shooter there is in custody. NBC News reported that the two shootings do not appear to be connected, and no authority has announced any link between the California and Michigan cases. Spirit Halloween said both affected stores will remain closed for the rest of the season.
What happens next
Three things now run in parallel: the hunt for the Fairfield suspect, built on mall and store video; the Solano County Coroner's examination, which is expected to settle the question of Hages's pregnancy; and the hospital course of the three men still in critical condition, including the 16-year-old. Until police release a suspect description or make an arrest, their public advice stands on the witness appeal above — anyone who was in the mall on Friday night and has not yet spoken to detectives is being asked to come forward.