FOREST CITY -- Police in upstate New York say a man from Forest City walked into a busy mall with his wife and two children and then fired a shot. That suspected shooter from Susquehanna County turned himself in to police.
Michael Perez-Rodriguez, 27, has lived in Forest City for the past year and a half. He is charged with reckless endangerment and assault for what happened in that upstate New York mall on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Authorities say security camera video shows Perez-Rodriguez walking into the Galleria Mall in Orange County, New York with his wife and two children Sunday afternoon.
A few minutes later, police say Perez-Rodriguez fired a single shot into the ground and some shoppers feared it would be the first shot of many.
SWAT teams arrived to evacuate the mall in Middletown.
Police say a woman and her 12-year-old son were grazed by fragments of the bullet fired and the two were treated and released at a local hospital.
Witnesses say some shoppers seemed on the verge of panic.
"People were telling everyone to calm down to take it easy. Thank God nothing really happened."
Police spent three days looking for the shooter until Michael Perez-Rodriguez turned himself in Tuesday night.
The Forest City man shaved his mustache and cut his hair sometime after the shooting.
A judge in upstate New York set bail at $2,500 which Perez-Rodriguez paid.
"I don't know what seems low about it. The individual has no criminal record. He did change his appearance," said Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler.
Prosecutors noted that Perez-Rodriguez had a license to carry firearms in both New York and Pennsylvania.
Authorities say Perez-Rodriguez grew up near the mall in the Hudson Valley of New York and frequently visited his family there after he left and moved to Forest City.