Responding to a mall-wide brawl in December and a triple shooting in a Macy's department store Saturday night, officials at Monroeville Mall say teens visiting on weekend nights soon will need to be accompanied by an adult.

Monroeville Mayor Gregory Erosenko said he will reopen a police substation inside the mall that had been closed for a couple of years. “We aren't going to tolerate this at all,” Erosenko said.

But District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala said officials have long known trouble was on the way.

A consultant hired by the District Attorney's Office urged mall officials to upgrade security last spring because of concerns over drugs and violence moving east from Pittsburgh, but mall management still hasn't used his recommendations, he said.

Zappala declined to say whether drugs were a motivation for the shooting Saturday, when police say Tarod Tyrell Thornhill, 17, of Penn Hills opened fire inside Macy's and wounded three people — two of them critically.

Police said Macy's surveillance footage shows Thornhill approach Davon Jones, 20, with a semiautomatic handgun, exchange words with Jones and then open fire.

Just as Thornhill fired, police said, Thomas Singleton, 48, and his wife, Mary Singleton, 47, walked between the two.

Thomas Singleton suffered a gunshot wound in the back of his left leg that severed an artery, police said. A Monroeville police officer applied a tourniquet.

“I think that saved the life,” said Forbes Regional Hospital's medical director, Dr. Chris Kaufman.

Mary Singleton was shot in the left shoulder, police said, and Jones suffered multiple gunshot wounds, including in his left side, groin and buttocks.

All three were transported to Forbes' trauma center. Thomas Singleton and Jones are in critical condition, and Mary Singleton is in fair condition, said Allegheny Health Network spokesman Dan Laurent.

Saturday night's shooting was carried out nearly six weeks after teens engaged in a huge brawl inside the mall in December.

Zappala said Sunday that in late 2013, his office warned Allegheny County Council that drug dealers had been moving their activities out of Homewood and Wilkinsburg and into Monroeville, driven out by pressure from police and investigators.

Working under contract with Zappala's office, John Hudson of Monaca-based Security Consulting Solutions Inc. reviewed security at the mall and recommended that management install license-plate reading technology at three entrances to the mall parking lot, which could keep records of who comes and goes and could alert law enforcement if anyone arrives who is a known or wanted criminal, Hudson said. But nothing of the proposed $105,000 project was installed, he said.

“I do not believe any money has been invested in that regard,” Zappala said. “Now, I've got three people who were shot (Saturday) night. I want to know — I'm going to know — exactly what they're going to do; I want to know that technology is either going to be utilized or what their safety plan is, because we're not just going to react to violence.”

Zappala said similar combinations of cameras and license-plate readers at The Waterfront in Homestead, Munhall and West Homestead have helped solve a couple of crimes in the past five years, and a system was installed at The Waterworks mall in response to a kidnapping there in 2007. But Hudson could not say whether license-plate readers might have prevented Saturday's shooting.

Zappala said grant money could be available to Monroeville, though its commercial success means the mall's owners would have to justify spending public money if they want help adding cameras or plate readers.

By the end of February, mall officials said, they plan to start a “youth escort policy” requiring all visitors younger than 18 to be accompanied by a parent or guardian at least 21 years old after 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Mall officials will issue special identification for teens working at the mall after 6 p.m. on weekends.

“We have designed a policy that will allow Monroeville Mall to address unsupervised youth issues and provide all of our shoppers with a pleasant shopping experience,” the mall's general manager, Tom Gerber, said in a statement.

He could not be reached for further comment.

Hudson told the Tribune-Review he is unsure how effective the mall's new policy for minors might be, considering that it would require significant effort and increased patrols to enforce the policy in a busy mall and vast parking lots.

“If they're going to institute that, they're going to have to follow up,” he said. “I think it's going to hurt business at the mall.”

Mall officials said the new policy arose from talks with municipal officials, business leaders and community members.

Two Monroeville police officers have been present at the mall on Friday and Saturday nights in addition to mall security, Erosenko said. Officials are going to increase frequency of patrols immediately.

Thornhill remains in Allegheny County Jail on $200,000 bail on charges of aggravated assault, gun possession, reckless endangerment, causing catastrophe and attempted homicide.

Lawanda Thornhill, 30, of East Hills said her half-brother lived with their father, Roderick Thornhill, in Penn Hills and attended Penn Hills High School, where she believes he was a junior.

Roderick Thornhill could not be reached for comment. No one answered the door at his two-story home.

Lawanda Thornhill said she heard about the mall shooting before going to bed Saturday night but knew nothing of her half-brother's involvement.

“Is he OK? Was he shot?” she asked.

Told that police charged him in the shooting, Lawanda Thornhill repeated: “Oh my goodness.”

She asked about the people wounded in the shooting.

“I pray for them,” she said.

Tarod Thornhill had previous run-ins with law enforcement and spent time at Shuman Juvenile Detention Center, Lawanda Thornhill said.

“But this is his first time charged as an adult,” she said.

According to Brackenridge police Chief Jamie Bock, his officers met at the Dunkin' Donuts in Tarentum about 2:45 a.m. with Tarentum police, FBI officials and Allegheny County and Monroeville detectives to coordinate Thornhill's arrest at the home of his 16-year-old girlfriend on Second Avenue.

When they entered that residence about 30 minutes later, they found Thornhill in a bedroom sleeping; he was unarmed and surrendered without incident, Bock said.

A woman at the home declined to comment Sunday and closed the front door on a reporter inquiring about the early morning arrest.

Staff writer Renatta Signorini contributed to this report.

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