Coroner IDs suspect in Boise mall shooting that killed 2
Police and emergency crews respond to a reported shooting at the Boise Towne Square shopping mall Monday, Oct. 25, 2021, in Boise, Idaho. (Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman via AP)
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The suspect in a Boise mall shooting that killed two people and injured four others has died, the Boise Police Department said Tuesday.
The Ada County Coroner identified the suspected shooter as Jacob Bergquist, a 27-year-old Boise man. Coroner Dotti Owens said Bergquist’s cause of death was still pending, but he died late Tuesday morning at a hospital.
Owens identified one of the people killed as Jo Acker, a 26-year-old security guard who worked at the mall. Family members said she died while trying to stop the shooter.
“Jo you were always kind and loving …. you always had such an enormous heart of gold,” Acker’s sister Shawna Lee Lannigan wrote on Facebook. “You were and are and always will be a hero. I love you to the ends of this earth and beyond.”
The Boise Police Department first got the call that shots had been fired at the Boise Towne Square Mall at about 1:50 p.m., with callers describing a white man dressed in black, in possession of multiple guns.
In a prepared statement released Tuesday afternoon, the police department said evidence shows the shooter was first contacted by a security guard who was shot and killed at the scene. Police said the shooter then fired several rounds, shooting a glass escalator and a second victim who died of his injuries at a hospital.
The Ada County Coroner identified the slain man as Roberto Padilla Arguelles, 49, of Rupert, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The shooter then walked through the mall, firing rounds into the floor, which led to a 52-year-old woman and a 23-year-old woman being injured. Another man was injured when he fell while trying to escape the mall.
About three minutes after the initial report, responding officers saw the suspect running from mall area. They exchanged gunfire with the suspect outside a nearby business along a busy road, with the suspect shooting toward the road, according to the police department.
A 68-year-old woman who was in her car on the road was injured in the gunfight, according to police. An officer was also injured in the shootout, and was treated and released from the hospital.
Police found 18 spent shell casings inside the mall, and the investigation shows that the shooter had several guns and ammunition at the mall, the department said.
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