Tacoma Mall gunman "sorry"; victim unmoved

TACOMA — The 20-year-old man who wounded several shoppers after opening fire at the Tacoma Mall last year says he hoped police would kill him.

In an interview with The News Tribune of Tacoma, Dominick Sergio Maldonado said talks with a jailhouse psychologist made him realize he had grown tired of suppressing pain from traumatic childhood experiences.

"I wanted to go there to die by the cops," Maldonado said in his first interview since the Nov. 20 shooting spree. "I wanted them to shoot me."

Maldonado's father died when he was 10. His mother briefly put him in foster care afterward. He said he was harassed and beaten at a police youth camp when he was almost 12 — a claim law-enforcement officials have denied — and that he once was beaten and thrown into the woods naked.

The most seriously injured of seven people hit by gunshots said a troubled childhood is no excuse. "I had a rough upbringing in areas, too," said Brendan "Dan" McKown. "I didn't shoot up a mall." McKown was shot five times and suffered severe spinal injuries.

Maldonado faces 15 criminal charges, including attempted murder. He's being held in lieu of $2 million bail.

His lawyer, Sverre Staurset, acknowledged that Maldonado's childhood isn't an excuse and that Maldonado doesn't consider it one either.

Maldonado described his early childhood as happy. His father, a diabetic, died in 1996. Maldonado's mother had a nervous breakdown and sent the kids to foster care for a couple of months.

"Right after my father died, I kind of shut down. I just felt like I got abandoned," he said.

He started getting into trouble after moving back with his mother. By 2003, had juvenile convictions for trafficking stolen property, theft and burglary.

The date of the shootings, Maldonado sent a text message to an ex-girlfriend's cellphone saying, "Today is the day the world will know my anger. Today the world will feel my pain. Today is the day I will be heard." He said he doesn't remember it.

He also said he doesn't remember most of what he said to 911 dispatchers that day. In the first call, he told a dispatcher he had a Chinese-made assault rifle and a Tec-9 handgun, and he was going to start shooting.

Despite the screams and the gunfire, Maldonado said he remembers only quiet: "I pointed my gun to the ceiling and said, 'Everybody down.' "

As he made his way down the mall, he encountered McKown. "I heard him behind me and he says something like, 'Drop your gun or I'll shoot you,' " Maldonado said. Maldonado turned around, said he saw McKown pointing a gun at him, then raised his rifle.

He said he tried to make sure none of his hostages got hurt. He released a 10-year-old boy who was in the store. He felt terrible that one man was crying and clearly terrified. He decided that he didn't want to die, either.

By the time he surrendered, he was tearful and afraid. Tacoma police took him into custody without a fight.

"For maybe two seconds, the plan seemed like it was the right idea," Maldonado said, his chin quivering and tears pooling in his eyes.

Maldonado said he sometimes wishes that before he went to the mall something bad had happened to him, like a car crash.

He said he finds it inspiring that his most-wounded victim recently began walking again.

"There's no words to say how sorry I am," Maldonado said.