A shooting inside a Wal-Mart wounded a 6-year-old girl, an employee and another man Tuesday, police said. Two suspects were arrested, and a third was at large.
The employee and the girl were treated at a hospital, police said, but their conditions were not immediately released. The other man suffered a minor graze wound to the hand and was treated at the scene.
Police said the reason for the shooting was unknown.
Police Chief Michael Carillo said the three men were inside the store when at least one of them opened fire with a .38-caliber handgun. The weapon was recovered inside the store, which was closed indefinitely.
Store employees caught one suspect, and another was arrested outside of Deming about an hour later, Carillo said.
State police, sheriff’s deputies, customs officials and Border Patrol officers searched for the third suspect. Deming is about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Carillo said investigators also were interviewing witnesses and reviewing surveillance video from inside the store.
Linda Hack, 55, said she was shopping near the front of the store when she heard at least two pops.
“I didn’t know they were shots,” she said. But moments later, other customers told her someone was shooting. She and a horde of other customers fled toward the back of the store.
Carillo said the store was evacuated immediately after police arrived. Officers were on the scene within minutes.
Sharon Weber, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart at company headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., confirmed that there had been a shooting in the “vestibule area” of the store.
Weber had no other information and referred other questions to police.
The shooting was the second outburst of violence at a Wal-Mart store in New Mexico in recent months. In August, one man was killed and another injured in an apparent domestic dispute inside a store in Albuquerque.
