Cops Free 14 Hostages from L.A. Area Mall

By Toni Guinyard and Jonathan Lloyd, NBC Los Angeles

Credit: NBC4 Los Angeles

Los Angeles SWAT members outside the Nordstrom Rack store in Westchester.

January 11, 2013 Updated Jan 11, 2013 at 4:58 PM PDT

One person was sexually assaulted and another was stabbed in the neck during a hostage situation at a Southern California shopping center that ended early Friday after Los Angeles Police Department SWAT members entered a Nordstrom Rack and escorted at least 14 people from the building.

Gunmen at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center in Westchester, Calif., held the hostages in a storage area before the early morning operation, said LAPD spokesman Andy Neiman. The hostages were being interviewed early Friday morning to determine what happened before 11 p.m. Thursday night, when LAPD officers from the Pacific Division received a 911 call from a man who said his girlfriend saw two armed men enter the store.

An officer witnessed a man exit the store, then run back inside after he noticed the officer. "That heightened the officer's suspicion that something wasn't right," said Neiman.

Officers then saw another man grab a woman and run inside the store. At about midnight, officers had surrounded the Nordstrom Rack, which is on the second floor of the Promenade.

At about 2 a.m., SWAT members found 13 women and one man in the storage area. They were escorted out of the building.

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