The unidentified man who drove a black SUV into the Woodfield Mall in Chicago and sent shoppers panicking reportedly has a health condition that requires medication.
According to ABC 7, the 22-year-old suspect’s father revealed that his son suffers from medical condition that he declined to identify.
The suspect was taken into custody on Friday by police officers without incident.
At the time, the suspect refused medical transport.
The man was taken to the Amita Health Behavioral Medicine Institute for further treatment, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The suspect is currently staying at the Amita Health Behavioral Medicine Institute in Chicago (pictured)
Sgt. Karen McCartney said in a statement: ‘The duration of his treatment is unknown and no charges will be authorized until his release.”
The website says: ‘At the AMITA Health Behavioral Medicine Institute, we treat the entire spectrum of disorders — depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, addictions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism and more — with the same results-driven, research-based approach as any other illness.’
The SUV eventually came to a stop by crashing into a podium in the mall
Schaumburg police Chief Bill Wolf told reporters on Friday that authorities have not ruled out the possibility of a medical issue.
Wolf said: ‘That is one of the possibilities that we are investigating, that there was some type of medical issue involved here.’
‘There is no indication that this was a terrorist attack; there is no indication this was something pre-planned and no indication that the mall itself was a target or thought to be a target ahead of time.’
The suspect, an unidentified male, was taken away from the scene in handcuffs
The initial incident took place Friday afternoon when the suspect drove a SUV into the Chicago mall.
Fox 32, a local outlet, initially reported that there were fears a shooter was on the scene. They corrected their story shortly afterwards to say it was a false alarm.
Videos from the scene showed the male driver speeding past terrified shoppers.
The driver plowed through the front of Sears and then carried on through the mall
They screamed and dispersed in different directions as the vehicle sped through, before eventually crashing into a pillar.
The driver was arrested at the scene and was led away in handcuffs.
It remains unclear if he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or if he injured anyone.
He plowed through the doors of Sears to gain entry to the mall then carried on.
Among the store fronts he destroyed were Forever 21 and Hollister.
Witnesses described the panicked chaos afterwards.
‘To see all the panic, it was definitely frightening. You hear about this stuff on the news all the time, and wouldn’t expect it to come so close to where you live.
‘It’s a messed up situation,’ Nikko Danz told The Chicago Tribune.
The SUV is shown driving through the mall on Friday after plowing through the front door of Sears
Another man who was working at the time said he was first alerted to the danger when people began ‘bolting’ into their store.
‘All of a sudden, we just see people bolting across our store, bolting into our store,’ Jonathan Galingan said.
He said people yelled ‘active shooter’.
‘They were yelling, ‘active shooter!’ We all panicked and were in shock, so we started escorting people toward our backdoor,’ he said.
He and one of his colleagues led terrified shoppers out an emergency exit.
‘I was thinking of the children that were coming in, being yanked by their parents,’ he said.
A tweet from Friday shows the unidentified suspect (pictured) being arrested by local authorities
Romexterra Construction Fire & Water Restoration Services shared photos of the damage inside Woodfield Mall on Facebook.
Shattered glass and completely toppled walls are pictured in the aftermath of the suspects vehicle rampage.
The car itself is also shown, with shattered glass littering the front window, vehicles metal ripped from the side and the tire inverted.
Romexterra Construction Fire & Water Restoration in Chicago shared photos of the damage in Woodfield Mall after the SUV drove through it (pictured)
The black SUV sustained sever damage as a result of the Friday afternoon rampage (pictured)