Woman shot at Greenwood Park Mall in 2022 sues owner, security firm
GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) — A woman shot in the Greenwood Park Mall shooting in 2022 and her family have filed a lawsuit in a Marion County court to seek financial compensation for medical expenses that led to a “permanent physical disability.”
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Marion Superior Court 1 against the mall owner, Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, and the mall’s security agency, California-based Allied Universal Event Services.
In the July 17, 2022, shooting, “Kaya Stewart was shot multiple times, incapacitated and sustained life-threatening injuries,” the lawsuit says.
Stewart, her juvenile sister, her mother, Eumeka R. Stewart, and her sister’s father, Samuel Stewart III, are seeking an undisclosed amount of compensation for “past and future economic damages.”
Those damages, the lawsuit said, are “including but not limited to medical and related expenses, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, past and future non-economic damages, including but not limited to bodily injury of a serious and permanent nature, pain and suffering, permanent physical disability, inconvenience, emotional stress, anxiety, loss of enjoyment of life, impairment of the quality of life, any and all other consequential losses arising from the Defendants’ wrongful conduct as provided by law.”
The lawsuit cites several failings of the mall and its security firm, including a need for security personnel training; a lack of monitoring of parking lots, the food court and restrooms; and inadequate emergency plans.
At 4:54 p.m. July 17, 2022, 20-year-old Jonathan Sapirman entered the mall and walked directly to the food court restroom with three guns and more than 100 rounds of ammunition, according to the Greenwood Police Department.
The lawsuit says Sapirman lingered the food court’s restroom for more than an hour before the shooting. “Upon information and belief, the Assailant spent more than an hour inside a stall of the men’s restroom, during which time he donned an ammunition vest and assembled several weapons which he intended to use to carry out a mass shooting, including a Sig Sauer model 400M rifle, a Smith and Wesson M&P15 rifle, and a Glock model 33 handgun, six fully loaded 5.56 magazines and two Glock 33 magazines. He also attempted to flush his cell phone down the toilet.”
Police say, about 5:56 p.m. that Sunday afternoon in the food court, Sapirman shot and killed 30-year-old Victor Gomez, 56-year-old Pedro Pineda, and his wife, 37-year-old Rosa Pindea.
Shortly after the shooting, Police Chief Jim Ison told the news media, “Sapirman then fired several more rounds into the food court, striking a 22-year-old female. A bullet fragment, believed to have ricocheted, hit a 12-year-old female who was running for the exit in the back.”
Elisjsha Dicken, a mall customer who killed Sapirman, survived the tragedy. Dicken, who was 22 when the shooting happened, is from Seymour. The lawsuit says he was legally carrying a Glock handgun while at the mall.
Police later found a note from Sapirman that said, “My final thoughts on paper. I’m a sociopath. I want to hurt people.”
