COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) — The 19-year-old Maryland mall gunman was a skateboarding enthusiast who took a taxi to the mall, carrying a 12-gauge shotgun he'd purchased legally a month earlier, plenty of ammunition and some crude homemade explosives inside a backpack, authorities said.
Darion Marcus Aguliar entered the Mall in Columbia around 10:15 a.m. Saturday near Zumiez, a shop that sells skateboarding gear, and went downstairs to a food court directly below. Less than an hour later, he returned to the store, dumped the backpack in a dressing room and then started shooting, police said.
Shoppers fled in a panic or barricaded themselves behind closed doors and police arrived within 2 minutes of the first 911 call. They found three people dead, including Aguilar, who killed himself, police said.
The shooting has baffled law enforcement and acquaintances of Aguilar, a quiet, skinny teenager who graduated from high school less than a year ago and had no criminal record. Police spent Sunday trying to piece together his motive, but by late afternoon, it remained elusive.
After Aguilar had fired between six and nine shots, two Zumiez employees were dead, police said. One victim, Brianna Benlolo, a 21-year-old single mother, lived half a mile away from Aguilar in the same College Park neighborhood, but police said they were still trying to determine what, if any, relationship they had. Although they lived close to Maryland's largest university, neither was a student there.
The other employee, Tyler Johnson, didn't know Aguilar and did not socialize with Benlolo outside of work, a relative said.
Tydryn Scott, 19, said she was Aguilar's lab partner in science class at James Hubert Black High School and said he hung out with other skaters. She said she was stung by the news.
"It was really hurtful, like, wow — someone that I know, someone that I've been in the presence of more than short amounts of time. I've seen this guy in action before. Never upset, never sad, just quiet, just chill," Scott told The Associated Press. "If any other emotion, he was happy, laughing."
Aguilar graduated in 2013, school officials confirmed.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions," Howard County Police Chief William McMahon said at a news conference. Aguilar purchased the shotgun legally last month at a store in neighboring Montgomery County.
It took hours to identify the gunman since he was carrying ammunition and a backpack containing homemade explosives, McMahon said. Officers searched Aguilar's home Saturday night, recovering more ammunition, computers and documents, police said.
The home is a two-story wood-frame house in a middle-income neighborhood called Hollywood, near the Capital Beltway. No one answered the door Sunday morning. There was a Christmas wreath on the front door and signs that read "Beware of Dog."
Aguilar and his mother rented the home. Sirkka Singleton, who owns the property with her husband and lives a block away, said they use a property manager to find tenants and have never met the Aguilars. She declined to say who the property manager was.
A roommate who answered the door at Benlolo's home confirmed that she lived there but declined to comment further. Two police officers went into the home after he spoke briefly to a couple of reporters.
Residents described the neighborhood as a mix of owners and renters, including some University of Maryland students. But university spokeswoman Katie Lawson said neither the victims nor the gunman attended the school.
A man who answered the phone at Johnson's residence in Mount Airy, northwest of Baltimore, said the family had no comment. The victim's aunt told a local television station that she did not believe her nephew knew Aguilar.
Sydney Petty, in a statement to WBAL-TV, said she did not believe her nephew had a relationship with Benlolo.
"Tyler didn't have anything beyond a working relationship with this girl, and he would have mentioned it if he did, and we're just as confused as anybody," Petty said.
She said her nephew also worked at a drug rehabilitation center in Mount Airy, for which she served on the board.
Five other people were hurt in the attack, but only one was hit by gunfire — a woman who was in the food court downstairs from the store and was hit in the foot. All were released from hospitals by Saturday evening.
At the time of the shooting, the mall was busy with weekend shoppers and employees.
Police searched the mall with dogs overnight. Stores were to reopen Monday afternoon.
Benlolo's grandfather, John Feins, said in a telephone interview from Florida that his granddaughter had a 2-year-old son and that the job at Zumiez was her first since giving birth to her son.
"She was all excited because she was the manager there," he said.
He described his daughter's family as a military family that had moved frequently and had been in Colorado before moving to Maryland about two years ago. He said his granddaughter was on good terms with her son's father, and they shared custody.
"I mean, what can you say?" he said. "You go to work and make a dollar and you got some idiot coming in and blowing people away."
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Associated Press writers Jessica Gresko and Martin Di Caro in Washington, Eric Tucker in Columbia, Md., and Kasey Jones in Baltimore contributed to this report.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Darion Marcus Aguilar, 19, of College Park, Maryland, has been named as the deceased shooter in yesterday's deadly rampage at a Maryland shopping mall. You can watch the police press conference above. You can watch the police press conference announcing his identity above. It's alleged by investigators that at around 10:15 a.m., Aguilar showed up at the Mall in Colombia, Maryland, about 25 miles northeast of D.C., intent on a bloody rampage.
Here's what we know about him so far. Stay tuned for updates.
1. He Fired 6-8 Shots with a Shotgun Inside Zumiez
According to Twitter user, Mike Fitzhugh, this is the alleged Columbia mall shooter, Darion Aguilar.(Twitter)
On Saturday morning, Aguilar allegedly entered Zumiez on the upper floor of the Columbia mall and open fired. According to police, 6 to 8 shots were fired in the store. The bullets killed three people, including the suspect, and injured at least 5 others. Detectives believe that Aguilar sat in the mall for an hour, downstairs, before moving up stairs to begin his attack, reports The Washington Post.
CNN reports that Aguilar took a taxi cab to the mall about an hour before the shooting occurred. Police added that his movements at the mall after arriving were very limited.
The Baltimore Sun reports on the their interview with witness Shafon Robinson who told the them:
He looked straight at me. He pointed the gun at me and looked at my eyes," she said.
Robinson's husband, Terrance Lilly, screamed at her to get down, which she did as a shot went over her head. It struck a wall behind her, spraying her clothes with dust, she said. Another shot hit the cover of a nearby fire extinguisher, Robinson said.
2. He Killed Two Employees and Himself
Two Zumiez employees, young mother, 21-year-old Brianna Benlolo and 25-year-old Tyler Johnson were found shot dead by the 12 gauge shotgun wielded by the gunman. The final of the 6 to 8 shots fired within the store was Aguilar allegedly turning the gun on himself. The three gunshot victims were dead when police arrived on the scene.
3. The Gun Was Legally Purchased
The AP reports that Aguilar bought the Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun legally from a store in Montgomery County last month.
4. He Brought Explosives to the Mall
Police report that ID'ing the shooter took a long amount of time because authorities discovered crudely fashion explosive devices inside the Aguilar's bag. The police neutralized the devices and reported that they were made from fireworks and other household items, reports CBS Baltimore.
The bag was also filled with ammunition.
5. Police are Still Searching for a Motive
Police are still searching to find a motive in the shooting spree at the mall. When interviewing acquaintances of the victims, none of them said Aguilar's name was familiar causing the police to question any previous associations between the shooter and victim. His home, in the 4700 block of Hollywood Road in College Park, Maryland (below), has been searched be police.
According to CBS Baltimore, Aguilar and his mother rent the home in a neighborhood that features many college students who attend the nearby University of Maryland. It has been confirmed that Aguilar was not a student there.
The Washington Post reports that Aguilar graduated from James Hubert Black high school in 2013. The Post goes on to report that Aguilar was an employee at a Dunkin Donuts store and had been due to open the shop at the time of the shooting.
A Darion Aguilar from Silver Spring, Maryland (where James Hubert Black high school is) had anonline account with the outdoors/hiking site, All Trails. In 2009, at the age of 14, Aguilar ran theMarine Corps Marathon where he placed 4764 of 5480, but in the top 33% of his age-group.
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The Howard County police chief, William J. McMahon, addressed the news media about the deadly shootings at the Mall in Columbia.
The gunman in the deadly shooting at a shopping mall in suburban Maryland on Saturday was identified by police officials on Sunday as a young man who lived in the same community as one of the two victims.
The Howard County police chief, William J. McMahon, identified the gunman as Darion Marcus Aguilar, 19, of College Park, Md. He is believed to have killed two people at the Zumiez store at the Mall in Columbia and then committed suicide, the police said.
Shots rang out around 11:15 a.m. on Saturday at the mall, located in a suburb between Washington and Baltimore, sending shoppers running and hiding under tables in the food court.
Two employees were found dead inside Zumeiz, a skate shop on the upper level of the two-story center. Mr. Aguilar’s body was found near the victims, along with a shotgun and ammunition, police officials said.
Five other people had minor injuries — most occurred as they fled after hearing the gunshots — and they were released from a hospital on Saturday evening after receiving treatment.
At a news conference on Sunday morning, Mr. McMahon said that the police were still working to determine a motive behind the attack, and that they had not determined whether there was a relationship between Mr. Aguilar and the victims.
The weapon used in the shooting was a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun that Mr. Aguilar bought in Montgomery County, Md., in December, Mr. McMahon said.
The police have reviewed surveillance video footage from the mall and determined that Mr. Aguilar was dropped off by a taxi cab around 10:15 a.m. Saturday and had limited movement in the mall before the shootings.
The shootings set off fears in the area as residents waited to hear from loved ones and raised concerns across the country over yet another possible mass killing. But the police quickly said that the episode appeared to be over and that it had been isolated and confined to one store.
The two employees who were killed were identified on Saturday as Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park, and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Ellicott City, Md. On her Facebook profile, Ms. Benlolo said she was the first assistant manager at the store and had worked there since November 2012. She was from Cocoa Beach, Fla., and had attended a Paul Mitchell hair school in Rockville, Md., according to her profile. Her Instagram account showed several photos of her with her young son. Mr. Johnson’s Facebook profile said he started working at Zumiez, which sells clothing and accessories for skateboarding and snowboarding, in November 2013.
At the scene of the shooting, police officers found the bodies of the victims and near Mr. Aguilar's body a large amount of ammunition, including a backpack that contained two “crude devices that appeared to be an attempt at making explosives using fireworks,” police officials said. The police disabled those devices.
Mr. McMahon said that uniformed patrol officers had arrived at the mall within two minutes of the 911 calls. They were joined a short time later by SWAT team members, who began looking for other potential gunmen and helped shoppers hiding inside stores. The authorities asked people to stay there until they were sure it was safe to leave.
Those injured were taken to Howard County General Hospital. One person had a gunshot wound to the foot, and the others were treated for injuries like a twisted ankle.
The owner of Zumiez released a statement on Saturday saying that the company was “deeply saddened” by the violence. The company said it planned to make counseling available to store employees.
“The Zumiez team is a tight-knit community, and all of our hearts go out to Brianna and Tyler’s families,” Richard Brooks, the company’s chief executive, said in the statement.
Mr. McMahon said the mall — a huge complex with almost 200 shops, including the anchor stores Macy’s and Sears, along with a movie theater — would be closed on Sunday and Monday and possibly reopen on Tuesday.
Henry Callahan, 19, said he had been sitting at a table in the food court late Saturday morning when he heard “what sounded like a trash can being thrown over the balcony.” He heard someone shout that a man had a gun, and more screaming from upstairs.
He hid under the table with a family that had a young child. He heard about nine shots, he said.
“I was legitimately frightened,” Mr. Callahan said. “I had no idea what was going on.”
“The panic on their faces was tremendous,” he said of the family members he had been hiding with.
Mr. Callahan and the family hopped over the counter at an Arby’s restaurant and escaped through a security door in the back hallway, he said.
Mr. McMahon noted that police officers had practiced an emergency drill at the mall, which, he said, helped them in their response to the shooting. The department continued to post frequent updates about the shooting to Twitter over the weekend.
The mall was built in 1971 in Columbia, a planned community about 25 miles from Washington and about 15 miles from Baltimore. The town has about 97,000 residents spread over 10 villages. Along with Ellicott City nearby, it was named by Money magazine in 2010 as one of the best places to live in America.
Debbie Sergi said she had been working at the Wockenfuss Candies store when she heard about five or six shots that “sounded like a transformer had blown up.”
“People started running, so we got our gates closed and got our customers hidden in the back room,” she said. “We were lucky to get our doors closed and locked. We all cried. We were all scared — really scared.”
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Police Identify Gunman in Maryland Mall Shootingby By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS
The authorities are still trying to establish why Darion Marcus Aguilar, 19, shot and killed two employees of a skateboard shop Saturday. 
