A California shoe store owner has been arrested and charged with shooting a nine-year-old girl waiting in line to see the Easter Bunny twice while he was running after a suspected shoplifters, USA Today reports. The girl’s injuries are not life threatening.
Twenty-year-old Marqel Cockrell, a co-owner of Sole Addicts at the Mall of Victor Valley in Victorville, was arrested a few hours after the shooting in Nevada after he reportedly fled the scene. His bail is set at one million dollars.
Ava Chruniak was waiting in line for a visit with the Easter Bunny when shots rang out and she was hit in the arm twice by bullets. She was airlifted to the hospital for treatment, but photos of her in the helicopter show her smiling off the incident.
While carrying a gun, Cockrell reportedly chased two suspected shoplifter out of his store into the main thoroughfare of the mall and fired two shots at the unarmed shoplifters who were running away from him. The gun did not accidentally discharge, according to witnesses.