A shooting that caused panic at a mall near San Francisco left two teens with serious gunshot wounds and led to transit delays during rush hour on Tuesday, as police stopped a train to search for two suspects, authorities said.

Investigators believe the shooters, both “young males”, fired at each other with handguns at the Shops at Tanforan in San Bruno, said the police chief, Ed Barberini.

Zuckerberg San Francisco general hospital was treating two teenage boys hit by gunfire, according to a spokesman, Brent Andrew. One of the victims was critical and the other was in serious condition, he said.

Two other people who were hurt were treated and released, but the nature of their injuries was unknown, said the San Bruno fire chief, David Cresta.

Investigators believe at least one of the shooters, and maybe both, fled on a train.

“It was a senseless act,” said Barberini, adding that opening fire in a crowded shopping mall near a Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) station showed a “true disregard for human life”.

Police briefly closed the 12th Street Oakland station across San Francisco Bay while officers searched a train there, Bay Area rapid transit (Bart) said.

People were warned to stay away as Swat officers descended on the mall to investigate the gunfire that erupted around 4pm and sent shoppers scrambling for exits.

A witness at the shopping center reported hearing eight gunshots and seeing at least two gunshot victims on the second floor, along with three people in handcuffs.

One employee of a shop inside the mall, Angelica Castro, said she saw a “mob of people running” toward her store from the opposite side of shopping center while they were screaming “shooting, shooting, shooting”.

“Their faces just had terror,” she added.

“I saw people running and I heard pow, pow, pow, pow!” shopper George Castro told KPIX-TV. “People were yelling, ‘Get out of the mall, get out of the mall, there’s a shooting!”’

Eric Rosales said he and his family heard two or three gunshots as they arrived to see a movie at the shopping center about 10 miles south of downtown San Francisco.

“We dashed inside the theater,” said Rosales, of San Bruno. “We were like in a crouched position, just trying to hide out.”



Commuters were warned to expect train delays across the Bay Area.

In a separate incident in southern California, a man has been charged with a shooting that wounded a man inside one of the nation’s largest malls.

Prosecutors on Tuesday said Jose Manuel Salazar, a 22-year-old from Bellflower, has been charged with attempted murder and other crimes. It’s unclear whether he has an attorney.

He is accused of shooting a man inside the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, in the Los Angeles area.

Dozens of police swarmed the scene. They searched hundreds of stores but didn’t find the gunman until he was arrested Saturday in Redondo Beach.

Authorities haven’t released a motive for that attack.