Youth Opens Fire in Mall; Girl Wounded : Violence: Gunman escapes as stunned Westminster shoppers rush for cover. The 13-year-old victim, who was hit twice, is in stable condition.

As terrified shoppers ducked for cover, a teen-ager fired at least five rounds from the upper level of a mall on Wednesday afternoon, hitting a 13-year-old girl twice in the back on the level below.

The girl, whom police declined to identify, was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange. She was in stable condition after the 4 p.m. shooting at the Westminster Mall.

The shooter, about 17 or 18 years old, ran from the scene. He remained at large Wednesday night, police said. There were no other injuries.

Investigators speculated that the attacker and victim knew one other but were uncertain whether the attack was gang-related or the result of an argument, Sgt. Bill Lewis said. It also was unclear if the girl was the intended target, because she was with a group of friends, he said.

Carrie Graham, 22, of Westminster said she was on the upper level when she heard about five gunshots and saw the wounded girl fall.

“Everyone just froze at first and stood around, wondering if it was firecrackers,” said Graham, noting that there were about 10 other shoppers in the immediate area. “That girl’s friend looked up and I looked where she was staring at the guy running away.”

Graham said she ran downstairs into the Van’s Tennis Shoes store, grabbed several T-shirts and covered the victim.

The girl “was bleeding. She looked so young,” Graham said. “I’m still so shaken by this.”

Alex Alizadeh, 16, said he and a friend were in a pet store around the corner from Van’s when he heard gunfire. “We ran out here and saw some people on the escalators there ducking down,” he said. “The girl that was shot was screaming and yelling.”

Eight stores, including Van’s and others near the shooting scene, were closed as police cordoned off the area, but the remainder of the 175-store mall, which includes two movie theaters, remained open.

Shoppers just off work gathered to stare at the spent shell casings and at television cameras converging on the scene. Many said they could not believe what they had witnessed.

When the shots were heard, some shoppers ran into the B. Dalton Bookseller nearby on the lower floor, said the store’s assistant manager, Brian McDaniel, 21. “People were just trying to get out of the way,” he said.