One person was sexually assaulted and another was stabbed in the neck during a hostage situation at a Los Angeles shopping mall that ended early Friday.
That hostage situation in a Nordstrom Rack store ended early Friday when a police SWAT team freed at least 14 people, hours after they were taken hostage by two gunmen and held in a storage area.
The hostages were being interviewed early Friday morning to determine what happened before 10 p.m. Thursday night, when LAPD officers from the Pacific Division received a 911 call from a man who said his girlfriend saw two armed men enter the store.
An officer on the scene then witnessed a man coming of the store who then ran back inside.
"That heightened officers' suspicion that something wasn't right," said LAPD spokesman Andy Neiman.
The officers later saw another man grab a woman, and he also and ran back into the store as well. That's when officers knew they had a possible robbery in progress and a tactical alert was issued.
By 11:45 p.m., additional units were called to the scene, including LAPD SWAT officers who surrounded the Nordstrom Rack. A long search was conducted.
Shortly after 2:00 a.m., SWAT officers found 13 women and one man holed up inside a storage room and a bathroom. They were escorted out of the store and questioned by authorities.
It is not clear what the men were armed with, police said. The promenade closes at 9 p.m. on Thursdays, according to its website.
