A man was taken into police custody on Friday afternoon after gunfire rang out in the Gaslamp Quarter.
The incident took place shortly before 5 p.m. at the Ralphs supermarket on G Street between 1st and 2nd avenues, according to San Diego police. At least a half-dozen patrol cars were spotted nearby, with crime-scene tape up on 1st Avenue between G Street and Broadway.
An SDPD spokesman told NBC 7 that a federal ICE agent who was passing by the scene witnessed a confrontation between a security guard and a patron. Investigators said at one point, the customer pulled a gun out of a backpack and fired twice at the security guard, who returned fire, discharging his weapon a single time.
No one was hit by the gunfire, SDPD said, adding that the federal agent helped detain the customer until officers arrived.
Police said the gunman fled north after the shooting, on 1st Avenue, where he was taken into custody.
The handgun was spotted on the sidewalk after the shooting.
Elizabeth Lopez Franco was working nearby when the shooting occurred.
“We weren’t sure at the time why [she couldn’t leave her building],” Lopez Franco said, “and then I think, within 30 minutes, we realized there was an active shooting. And then that’s when I was kind of really worried, ’cause I have a daughter, and I wanted to make sure, if that was the case, she was nowhere near this area.”
Learning that something so violent happened at a store she shopped at was upsetting, Lopez Franco said.
“It made me not want to leave the building — knowing that can happen at any moment in your life,” Lopez Franco said. “Also, it makes you kind of want to live your life as you have it, because you never know when it’s the last.”
After the shooting, NBC 7 spotted a handgun on the sidewalk near the arched entrance-way to the Westin Hotel just off 1st Avenue, which would explain why the crime scene had been taped off along that corridor.
Investigators said they had not yet determined any motive for the confrontation between the security guard and gunman, who has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon.