🚨NO WHITE SUPREMACISTS INVOLVED🚨
🚨NO ISLAMIC JIHADISTS INVOLVED🚨
LiveNOW from FOX April 12, 2025: WATCH: Shootout inside South Carolina mall.
Local media outlets report, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott called on parents to step up in their children's lives and be accountable as his department investigates two violent crimes involving young people that happened over the span of days.
Lott held a press conference addressing the April 2 shooting at Columbia Place Mall, and the April 5 shooting in the middle of Blythewood.
WIS10 News, Columbia, SC local
written by Staff
Friday April 11, 2025
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) announced the arrest of a suspect in connection with a shooting at Columbia Mall in early April.
RCSD announced the arrest of 18-year-old Grant Rawls on Wednesday on charges of Breach of Peace of a High and Aggravated Nature and Possession of a Stolen Firearm.
During Rawls’ arrest, deputies gained possession of a gun, which was confirmed to have been used during the shooting.
The arrest comes just a week after the shooting, which injured one person unrelated to the incident.
According to RCSD, deputies responded to the scene at around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday after reports of a person being shot inside the mall.
Deputies said they found a person with a confirmed gunshot wound when they arrived.
An investigation of footage from the shooting showed multiple individuals in the store where the shooting took place, including a mother with a small child in a stroller. The mother and her child were unharmed.
The footage showed Rawls confronted by a group of 3 suspects, who then exchanged gunfire. According to deputies, Rawls was struck and had a gunshot wound to the lower body. He went to a hospital in Orangeburg to receive treatment.
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The Post and Courier Columbia
written by Caleb Bozard and Chloe Barlow
Friday April 11, 2025
COLUMBIA — Three gunmen in separate shootings at Columbia Place mall and in Blythewood in early April have been arrested, law enforcement officials said.
Nahjere Suber and Darell Birch, both 18-year-old high school students, were arrested on charges related to a shooting in Blythewood on April 6, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said at an April 11 press conference. Other suspects remain at large.
The Blythewood shooting occurred after a “pop up party” outside a Waffle House at 2 a.m. on April 6. A pop up party is a gathering planned quickly and promoted on social media shortly before it is set to occur.
Over 60 rounds were fired into the crowd of around 200 young people who gathered following the party which “took over Blythewood,” Lott said at the press conference.
Advertisements for the party instructing guests to bring their own alcohol and marijuana circulated online, he said.
“This is something you'd expect to hear in Iraq or Afghanistan during the war,” Lott said while playing audio from the shooting. “This is Blythewood … This is the warzone that these kids turned the Town of Blythewood into.”
In a surveillance video released on the department’s Facebook page and shown at the press conference, a hoard of young people flee the scene in pandemonium as gunshots ring out. Shoes and hats fly off, left behind on the ground. Three cars zoom through the parking lot.
“I’m so thankful that Richland County is a praying community, because only by the grace of God I’m not standing up here 20 or 30 kids that were killed,” Lott said at the press conference.
One woman was shot in her car while fleeing the gunfire, Lott said.
Investigators later identified three shooters, including the two currently in custody.
Several businesses on the block sustained property damage from the shooting, according to RCSD. The Town of Blythewood has considered implementing a curfew following the incident, Lott said.
Police are looking for a Black Maserati which fled the scene, he said. An individual in the crowd was identified as being out on bond for a murder charge.
The Blythewood shooting came three days after another incident at Columbia Place Mall on Two Notch Road on April 2 that sent one man to the hospital.
Surveillance footage of the shooting shows three suspects firing at another individual in a store within the mall. RCSD believes the shooters knew each other, Lott said.
The sheriff's department has arrested Grant Rawls, 18, on charges related to the shooting. Three other shooters remain at large.
Rawls was the individual exchanging shots with the three suspects still at large, and was taken into custody after seeking treatment for a gunshot wound at a hospital in Orangeburg, Lott said.
Surveillance footage from the mall shooting showed a woman dropping to the floor of a store with a stroller to shield her baby as the guns fired and articles of clothing were knocked from shelves by bullets.
“I want everybody to look at that,” Lott said as the footage played at the press conference. “I want parents in the community to look at that young lady right there and that baby and the danger that they're being subjected to.”
At least 25 shots were fired in the mall, Lott said. A man in the mall’s concourse was hit by a stray bullet and hospitalized.
One of the suspects was seen in footage fleeing the store with a rifle, while the remaining two had pistols, Lott said.
Lott said blame for the shootings lay with the gunmen and their parents, rather than the mall, Town of Blythewood or law enforcement. The shootings come as Lott has pushed for greater parental accountability for shootings perpetrated by young people in the community.
“We can’t put a deputy sheriff on every street corner,” he said. “That’s not possible. But there are some parents (who) can keep these kids butts where they need to be instead of 2 o'clock in the morning running around with a gun and shooting. That’s who we need to focus on.”
RCSD is continuing to investigate the shootings and are asking any parents of children involved in either incident to come forward.
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