New Jersey mall shooting gunman on the loose, but no one injured, authorities say A gunman fired a single shot inside a New Jersey mall and was on the loose after apparently fleeing the huge shopping center, officials in Paramus, N.J., said late Monday. Hundreds of law enforcement officials had converged on the mall after reports of gunfire. There were no reports of injuries. “We are searching for a shooter,” the mayor of Paramus, Richard Labarbiera, told reporters outside the Garden State Plaza Mall. Thousands of people shopping, dining and at movie theaters were evacuated safely. "Everyone is safe. No one has been injured," the mayor said. Jim Tedesco, deputy coordinator of the Bergen County Office of Emergency Management, said: “The shooter, we believe, has left the mall. We have found … a single shell casing.” Labarbiera said there was only one “confirmed single shot,” although several witnesses have described hearing several shots before mall security began yelling at people to flee. Officials said they still were investigating whether more than one shot was fired but that so far only one spent shell casing had been found. Tedesco said he thought it came from a long gun. “At this time, we have determined that it is not an active shooting incident but we must make sure that the entire mall is checked, so we are going store by store, floor by floor, to evacuate the people that are in the stores,” Tedesco said. Jonathan Astacio, a witness who was inside the mall, told CNN he heard several shots: "We heard two loud booms... Then we heard two more shots and saw people running... After that there were no more gunshots." Mall patron Paul Erlandson told CNN he had been outside the mall since 9 p.m. local time. "I was in the process of walking through the front doors actually as a huge crowd of people were basically running towards me... I never actually made it into the mall." "We’re just locked in here until police say we can leave," one woman, who was in a Nordstrom store in the mall, told the local ABC affiliate WABC. The woman, who did not want her name used, told WABC by phone that she heard several loud bangs. "It almost sounded like someone was dropping something in the mall. It was very strange. And then when we heard it the second time, everyone started running," the woman said. Clarice Forbes of Paterson, N.J., who works at Talbot's in the mall, said she saw the man walk by her shooting a rifle into the air. "It was very, very terrifying. Very scary," Forbes told the Paramus Patch. Ben Fastman, who works at a stall that sells hair products, said people began running and shouting, "There’s shooting, there’s shooting," Patch reported. The Bergen Record quoted witnesses describing a lone gunman dressed in black and talking to himself as he fired shots. The mall, the largest in New Jersey, has more than 300 stores. Los Angeles Times, Reuters