14 hostages freed from California mall;

[jrs]

By Toni Guinyard and Jonathan Lloyd, NBCLosAngeles.com

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.

The stabbing victim's wound is considered non-life threatening, Neiman said. The victim was treated and released at the scene.

Officers determined the gunmen were no longer in the store. They were following up on reports of a sport utility vehicle seen leaving the area.

Officers and an LAPD mobile command unit were searching a Culver City neighborhood early Friday, but it was not immediately clear whether the search was connected to the hostage situation.

Patrons at a movie theater in the complex told NBCLosAngeles.com they were asked to remain in the theater during the hostage situation.

The southbound lanes of the 405 Freeway, leading to Los Angeles International Airport, were temporarily shut down at the Howard Hughes Parkway off-ramp. By midnight, the lanes had been reopened though the exit appeared to remain cordoned off.

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jrs - all this media attention is drawing the crazies out of the woodwork.