Police ID assailant in Columbia mall shooting; motive remains unknown
Police ID assailant in Columbia mall shooting; motive remains unknown
(35 minutes later)
Darion Marcus Aguilar, a 19-year-old College Park resident, has been identified by police as the assailant in Saturday’s shooting at the Mall in Columbia, which left three people dead, including Aguilar.
On the final morning of his short life, Darion Marcus Aguilar climbed into a taxi in Burtonsville, 10 miles north of his College Park home. He carried a backpack and a pump-action, pistol-grip shotgun, a Mossberg 12-gauge, which he kept hidden as he informed the driver where he wanted to go.
Although one of the victims, Brianna Benlolo, 21, also lived in College Park, police have not established a connection between Aguilar and the victims, Howard County Police Chief William J. McMahon said at a Sunday morning news conference. The other victims was Tyler Johnson, 25, who had lived in Ellicott City but recently moved to Mount Airy.
The Mall in Columbia, he told the cabbie.
McMahon said Aguilar was dropped off by a taxicab about 10:15 a.m. at the mall in suburban Maryland, about 25 miles northeast of Washington. The shooting occurred directly above the mall’s food court, at Zumiez, a clothing store for skateboarders and snowboarders, where Benlolo and Johnson worked.
Just 19 years old, a 2013 graduate of James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, Aguilar had been scheduled to work early Saturday, at a Dunkin Donuts. He didn’t show up. And by day’s end — hours after his violent , self-inflicted demise — his mother, having tried again and again to reach him, would report him missing to the police.
Aguilar, who police say lived with his mother, got out of the cab at the upper level and was seen going downstairs in the mall. A law enforcement official said that based on a review of surveillance video, investigators think that Aguilar sat for a while in one spot on the lower level and did not move around before he went upstairs and opened fire at Zumiez about an hour after his arrival at the mall.
Under a sunless sky, gray and frigid, it was about 10 a.m. as the taxi cruised north to Howard County. Soon, Aguilar — who kept a journal, in which he wrote of his dissatisfaction with his life, according to police — would fatally shoot two employees of a clothing shop, spreading terror in a suburban mall packed with shoppers.
After being briefed by police about the status of the investigation Sunday afternoon, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said in an interview that authorities still have not determined a motive for the attack.
Then he would turn the Mossberg on himself.
As for unconfirmed media reports about connections among the gunman and the two victims — specifically, that Aguilar was an ex-boyfriend of Benlolo and that he was jealous of a romantic relationship between Benlolo and her coworker Johnson — Ulman said, “We have absolutely no information at this time that links the shooter to either of these victims.”
But why?
More than 24 hours after the killings, with police having conducted numerous interviews, delving ever deeper into the backgrounds of Aguilar and the victims, Ulman said, “We have no information whatsoever on a motive. . . .. We’ve found no evidence of any connection at all. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It just means we’ve found no evidence that there is.”
Sunday night, almost 36 hours after the shootings, after “a considerable amount of time interviewing families, friends, associates of our victims and our shooter,” investigators still had not uncovered a motive for the attack, Howard County Police Chief William J. McMahon said. He said they had found no connections between Aguilar and either of the young adults he killed, Brianna Benlolo and Tyler Johnson.
A relative of Johnson’s said in an interview that police told the family Sunday that investigators remained stumped about the gunman’s motive. “They’re just saying they’re clueless,” said Maggie Sliker, Johnson’s aunt, adding that her nephew was not romantically involved with Brianna Benlolo, his slain coworker.
Benlolo, 21, of College Park, and Johnson, 25, of Mount Airy, worked together in Zumiez, a store for skateboarders, snowboarders and surfers. Though police said they have found no evidence that Benlolo and Aguilar were acquainted, Benlolo and Aguilar lived a short distance apart.
Ulman said, “Be assured that [the issue of motive] is the most important question that we’re still looking for answers to.”
“There’s still speculation that there was somehow some romantic involvement” between Aguilar and Benlolo and Johnson and Benlolo, McMahon said. “We have not been able to establish that, and I’m not sure where that information is coming from. And it’s becoming very frustrating for the families of the victims to hear this.”
Chief McMahon said six to eight shots were fired, killing Benlolo and Johnson. Minutes later, when officers arrived, they found the shooter dead of an apparently self-inflicted wound.
The apparent absence of a relationship between them and their killer adds a layer of mystery to the mayhem. If Aguilar didn’t travel to the mall specifically to shoot Benlolo or Johnson, if his purpose was random murder, why did he stop so soon, with only two victims dead? He had abundant ammo, authorities said. Why didn’t he keep shooting until the police arrived, until they cornered him or gunned him down?
McMahon said Aguilar’s weapon was a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, which he bought in Montgomery County in December. Police found the gun next to Aguilar’s body, which was laden with ammunition. In addition, they said his backpack, which was found in the store, contained what they described as two crude devices that seemed to be an attempt to use fireworks to make explosives.
These tragedies are familiar by now, and that’s how they normally end.
Ulman said that surveillance video shows Aguilar lingering in and near the mall’s first-floor food court for about an hour before going upstairs to Zumiez. His backpack was later found in the store’s dressing room, leading police to surmise that he entered the store with the shotgun inside the backpack, then took out the weapon in the dressing room, leaving the bag behind as he emerged and started shooting, Ulman said.
“We don’t know why,” said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman.
Police disabled the possible explosive devices, and, following standard procedure, searched the mall with K-9 units.
How it began: The cab pulled up at an upper-level entrance to the mall, near a Sears and a Starbucks, at about 10:15 a.m., Ulman said. In view of a surveillance camera, Aguilar got out, toting his backpack, and walked calmly through the doors.
Although Aguilar had a large quantity of ammunition and had apparently tried to make explosives, police said it appeared that he did not target anyone else at the mall.
Ahead of him as he entered, in a central area of the mall, was a merry-go-round spinning with children. He strolled past it, stepping onto an escalator near the carousel. At the bottom of the escalator, on the first level, is the food court. Under the eye of another video camera, he lingered for about an hour, sitting, standing, pacing, Ulman said.
Five other people in the mall needed medical treatment, one for a shotgun wound that police said was described as non-life-threatening, the others for minor injuries suffered in the frantic mass exodus from the shopping complex.
“We don’t have him on camera in the food court the entire time,” Ulman said. “But we know he stayed in that area because we would know if he moved out of that area. . . . The way the cameras are, we would have seen him somewhere else if he left that area.”
Police said a victim who was shot in the foot told them that she was on the lower level of the mall, below Zumiez, when she was injured. Detectives were investigating how the wound occurred.
Investigators “don’t know where the weapon was,” Ulman said. The shotgun was new to Aguilar; he bought it last month in Montgomery County, police said. “The assumption is it was in the backpack,” Ulman said. “It certainly wasn’t visible. He wasn’t carrying it openly.”
A law enforcement source said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive led the search of Aguilar’s home Saturday night in the 4700 block of Hollywood Road in College Park. They were looking for more explosives, among other things.
Then, about 11:15, Aguilar got back on the escalator and rode up. As he got off, the Zumiez store was just steps away. Benlolo and Johnson were the only workers, police said. There was one customer in the store, browsing.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, the source said Aguilar worked at a Dunkin’ Donuts in the College Park area and was supposed to open the store Saturday morning. He did not show up for work, though, and a manager had to open the store, the source said.
Aguilar apparently walked through the store and entered a dressing room near the back, Ulman said, because the dressing room is where police would later find his backpack, containing a crude, low-grade explosive device made with firecrackers.
The source said Aguilar’s mother filed a missing persons report about 1:45 or 2 p.m. Saturday — roughly two hours after the shooting — after having tried unsuccessfully to get hold of her son throughout the day.
Just seconds went by, evidently, before he emerged from the dressing room wielding the loaded shotgun.
Montgomery County schools officials confirmed that Aguilar graduated last June from James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring. He was admitted to Montgomery College but never attended, a spokeswoman said.
“We heard a loud bang,” said Courtney Birkmeyer, 22, who was with her mother in an American Eagle Outfitters store, trying on clothes.
George Sliker, an uncle of the slain Tyler Johnson, said he and other relatives frantically tried to contact Johnson after they heard about the shooting. Failing to reach him, Sliker said, they began calling hospitals. Then they drove to the mall.
“We thought it might be a clothing rack falling over.”
“The odds kept narrowing,” said Sliker, 67, of Upper Marlboro. “They couldn’t get anybody to tell them anything. It was horrible for them.” He described his slain nephew as polite and upbeat — “a likable kid” — and said he could not fathom why anyone would want to shoot him.
Seconds later, the two heard more booms, and realized they were gunshots. “Survival mode took over,” Birkmeyer said. “We got into the dressing room as quick as we could, and we crouched on the little bench where you can rest your garments — so our feet weren’t seen, just in case someone was walking around.”
“It’s very hard on the family, of course,” Sliker said. “He just seemed like an ordinary kid who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Ulman said police think Aguilar fired six to eight rounds with the Mossberg, using the final round on himself. Like his victims, he died on the floor of Zumiez. The customer in the store suffered no harm, police said.
Bryan Fischer, 34, said Johnson was a “kind of shy guy” who for the past several years had volunteered in an anti-drug program in Howard County schools. Johnson loved concerts and music, especially rave, dubstep and electronic dance.
Birkmeyer said she spoke with her father by cellphone during her and her mother’s harrowing 80 minutes in the dressing room. He was in another part of the mall, near the lower level food court, and kept his family updated with what was going on.
“He was a very sensitive kid with a huge heart who was there to help anybody in need, always there with a smile or a joke, loving and caring, and one of the best friends anybody could ask for,” Fischer said.
Arriving within minutes, heavily armed police officers swarmed through the mall, looking for a possible accomplice of the gunman, while hundreds of patrons fled to the icy cold outside. Five people needed medical treatment. One of them apparently suffered a minor wound from a stray shotgun pellet, police said. The others suffered nonserious injuries in the frantic mass exodus from the shopping complex.
Fischer said that Johnson did not socialize much with his slain co-worker, Benlolo, with whom he had worked at Zumiez since late last year.
As for Birkmeyer, “we were kind of safe and contained in our little dressing room,” she said. “So the panic was setting in. But luckily we didn’t have any of the visuals.”
Benlolo was an assistant manager at the store, according to Corey Lewis, who for the past two months was her housemate at a white duplex in College Park, just on the edge of the University of Maryland campus. Benlolo had a 2-year-old son who spent time with her at the duplex a few days a week, Lewis said, and posted numerous pictures of him on Instagram and Facebook.
Brandon Cole, 36, of Greenbelt, said he had just taken his 19-month-old daughter’s shoes off so she could run in a play area in the lower level of the mall.
“She was always kind and joyful,” Lewis said, noting that she had a smile on her face as she prepared to leave for work Saturday morning. “She never seemed like she had any negativity. This comes as a shock to everyone.”
He and his wife, Taylor Cole, were standing behind a bench watching their little girl play.
Zumiez chief executive Rick Brooks said in a statement that the company is “deeply saddened by the violence” at the store. “The Zumiez team is a tight knit community and all of our hearts go out to Brianna and Tyler’s families,” he said.
“We were sitting there quietly, admiring our young baby daughter and the innocent joy that is childhood,” he said. “And I heard two loud booms.”
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) lamented the deaths in a statement, expressing his “deepest condolences to the families of the victims and all those affected by this senseless act of violence. Protecting the public’s safety is our most solemn obligation.”
Then he heard another. “I said: ‘That’s a gun! . . . We need to move! We need to get out of here!’ ” Cole, who works for the Army, said he vaulted over a wall as his wife grabbed their child. They hurried into a J.C. Penney store and eventually out of the mall.
At the suburban mall, a quiet Saturday turned to terror as the blasts jolted shoppers and employees, who hit the floor and scrambled into stores.
“I saw the threat, assessed and moved,” Cole said. “I just reacted; I didn’t think.”
“It was pretty freaky,” said Robert Ashton, a 49-year-old Californian on a business trip to Maryland. He said he and two companions were in the first-floor food court, directly beneath Zumiez, when the shooting occurred. “You see these things on TV all the time,” he said. “But you never think you’re going to be in the middle of it.”
He said: “I was never scared. And I really only was overcome by emotion when I knew we were safe, and I was able to put hands on my wife and daughter, and just know how close we were to being injured or hurt.”
Ashton said he heard a boom from above that sounded like a table falling over. And then came more booms, at least three, he said. “We took off running” and found shelter at a Chick-fil-A with other mall patrons, including a woman with two toddlers and another with three children. They hid for about 45 minutes until police arrived.
Meanwhile, back in College Park, Aguilar’s mother, having been unable to reach him, phoned Prince George’s County police to report him missing. They two lived together in a two-story white house in the 4700 block of Hollywood Road. At the house, officers inspected Aguilar’s journal, and saw notations that made them realize he might have been a threat to himself.
Roger Aseneta, a manager at Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop, said he heard what he knew were gunshots about 11:15 a.m. He ushered his employees inside and locked the doors behind them. They went into a backroom where, on a surveillance camera, they could see people running in the food court outside.
“The investigator began to actively search for the missing man, to include tracking his phone,” police said in a missing persons report. “The phone indicated it was in the Columbia area, and our investigator soon determined it was pinging at the Mall in Columbia.”
“It’s a case of people running for safety,” he said. “It’s a really terrible thing. I never thought I would experience this. . . . I was shaking.”
Prince George’s officers arrived at the mall shortly before 6 p.m. “Not long thereafter, it was confirmed the missing person and the deceased gunman were one and the same.”
Aseneta, 52, said he heard five or six shots. And “I heard screaming,” he said in the parking lot, still in a white Auntie Anne’s apron.
Referring to Aguilar’s journal at a news briefing Sunday night, Chief McMahon offered few details of the gunman’s musings, describing only his theme:
At 12:30 p.m., police led frightened shoppers and workers from the mall entrance at the food court. Many were coatless, and those without cars were ushered, many shivering and some holding babies, into warm vans from Howard and Anne Arundel county fire departments. Some held hands and were crying.
“He does express some general unhappiness with his life.”
Police officers guarded each entrance off Little Patuxent Parkway to keep people from the nearly empty parking lots. Police said the mall will be closed Sunday.
Matt Zapotosky, Julie Zauzmer and Dan Morse contributed to this report.
Laura McKindles said she heard eight to 10 shots as she worked a booth on the second level overlooking the food court.
Matt Zapotosky, Julie Zauzmer and Dan Morse contributed to this report.
“People were yelling, ‘Someone’s got a gun!’ ” she said. “They were screaming.”
She said she ran across the corridor and into a perfume store, where she hid in a backroom for about 90 minutes until police gave the all-clear. She was with three other workers from her stall and from the store. “I was praying,” she said. “I was thinking about my family, my dog.” She had left her cellphone behind and couldn’t call anyone to tell them she was okay until after she got out.
“I think this country is in a lot of trouble,” said McKindles, who recently moved to Columbia from north of Baltimore. “I mean, what possesses someone to, on a Saturday afternoon, in this cold, to come to a mall and shoot people?
“Why? I just can’t understand what motivates that.”
Lori Aratani, Lynh Bui, Alice Crites, Jennifer Jenkins, Jenna Johnson, Victoria St. Martin, Carol Morello, Martin Weil, Clarence Williams and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
