Police: Mall Shooting Suspect’s Bond Set at $25K, Must Wear Ankle Monitor to Work

A judge in South Carolina set bond for a suspect in a mall shooting over the weekend that left 14 hurt, and it did not appear the incident was random, police said.

“Jewayne Price, 22, will be on house arrest but allowed to travel to and from work while wearing an ankle monitor if he posts bond,” Fox News reported Sunday.

The Columbia Police Department made the announcement in a social media post that afternoon:

In an earlier post, the department said Price was charged with unlawful carrying of a pistol:

The suspect was one among three others detained after the incident, however, the two other men were eventually released once authorities determined they were not involved in what happened, the Fox article said.

“We don’t believe this was random,” Columbia Police Chief W.H. “Skip” Holbrook explained. “We believe they knew each other and something led to the gunfire.”

Video footage showed law enforcement swarming the area at the Columbiana Centre mall and Price during a hearing:

He was arrested in 2018 and charged with accessory before the fact after the shooting death of a teenager, however, the outcome of the case was not immediately clear, according to Fox.

“We catch people, they serve a little bit of time, they get out and they get right back doing what they normally do and that’s commit crimes,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told reporters. “The criminal justice system needs to do better.”

Video footage showed people inside the mall after the shooting and one man told WLTX the noise was “deafening.”

“I mean, the screams and yells were like, it was so deafening you couldn’t hear or distinguish what people were saying or, you didn’t have time to ask anybody what’s going on. You knew basically that someone had a gun,” he continued:

Meanwhile, Price’s attorney, state Rep. Todd Rutherford, claimed the man acted in self-defense and detailed his actions, noting he turned himself in, handed over the firearm, and provided a statement to law enforcement.

In regard to the victims, nine suffered gunshot wounds and the rest were hurt trying to escape. A 73-year-old victim remained at the hospital but the others were sent home, the Fox report concluded.