A massive police response was underway Tuesday afternoon at the Costco store near the Plaza at Southpark on Royalton Road in Strongsville, Ohio, after reports circulated that one person had been shot inside the store. Some people monitoring a police scanner said it was an active shooter situation, while the Strongsville Police Department had not confirmed by that point that a shooting had taken place.
Fox 8 reported that police said it was an active scene.
On social media, multiple visitors at the mall said an active shooter situation had briefly unfolded there. Lisa Kradlak wrote on Facebook that there was an active shooter at the Strongsville Costco 20 minutes earlier and said she had just walked in when it happened. “They must have been a minute behind me. I’m fine but really shaken. I cannot imagine kids going thru this ALL THE TIME,” she wrote.
The conflicting reports showed how fast information was moving around the Strongsville Costco scene, with scanner claims and eyewitness posts spreading before police publicly confirmed the details. The store sits near the Plaza at Southpark, a busy retail area where a sudden police response would quickly draw shoppers, employees and nearby visitors into the same uncertainty.
For now, the key question is not what people online said they heard, but what investigators determine happened inside the store. The answer will depend on whether police confirm a shooting, and if so, whether anyone was hurt and how the scene unfolded so close to the entrance where Kradlak said she had just walked in.
