At least one person has been killed and five people were injured and transported to the hospital Thursday when two groups exchanged gunfire inside the food court at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, according to police.

Several of the people involved ran off as a large police presence responded.

“To the thugs that did this, we’re going to catch you,” Baton Rouge mayor Sid Edwards told reporters.

Authorities are looking for suspects with assistance from multiple agencies, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

“Two groups of people got into an argument inside the food court and started shooting at each other,” Baton Rouge police chief TJ Morse told reporters. “Unfortunately there were some innocent people in the area who might have also caught some rounds.”

Five people were reportedly taken into custody.

He said officers received calls at about 1.22pm reporting gunfire in the food court area. Video surveillance later showed the two groups arguing before opening fire on one another, Morse said.

He urged anyone who witnessed the incident to share any video footage.

Morse later clarified that five people had been injured, after previously saying there had been 10 total wounded. At least two people required surgery.

The person who was killed was not immediately identified.

“Right now there is no known threat to the public,” he said. “Right here is the safest place in Baton Rouge.”

According to WBRZ, one of its staff members was among those inside the mall who were moved to a secure holding area, while officers outside escorted others back to their vehicles.

Stanley Jackson, a FedEx employee, told Louisiana newspaper the Advocate that he was on the mall’s second level when the shooting started. He said he believed “several different guns went off” and that soon after “everybody started running”.

Jackson added that he saw four people lying on the ground and bleeding.

Kennedy Barnum, 22, told the Associated Press that she was at the mall to get lunch at the food court when she heard a woman on the phone outside say: “I’ll call you back. There’s an active shooter in the mall.”

Barnum described seeing people running and crying as law enforcement arrived within minutes. “We spoke to a security guard there and she told us that there was an active shooter there, people were shot and injured, and we should leave immediately,” Barnum told the AP.

Governor Jeff Landry said he had been informed about the incident and urged residents to stay away from the area. He said he and his wife “are praying for those affected and are grateful for a quick response by our law enforcement officials”, in a statement on X.

The incident follows another shooting earlier this week in Louisiana, when eight children were killed and two adults were wounded in a mass shooting in Shreveport, in what police called a “domestic violence incident”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

A firefighter whose truck collided with an Air Canada jet last month on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia airport, killing both pilots, heard an air traffic controller warn “stop, stop, stop” but didn’t know who it was for, federal investigators said Thursday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report on the 22 March collision that a crash prevention system for air traffic controllers didn’t generate an audio or visual alert, and lights on the runway that act as a stop light for crossing traffic were on until about three seconds before the collision.

After the air traffic controller’s initial stop warning, the fire truck’s turret operator heard the controller say, “Truck 1, stop, stop, stop,” and realized the warning was for the truck to halt, the report said. By that time, the truck was already on the runway as Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was landing and speeding toward it.

The turret operator, one of two crew members in the fire truck, recalled that as the vehicle turned left, he saw the airplane’s lights on the runway, the report said, summarizing an interview investigators conducted with the crew member.

The Air Canada plane slammed into the fire truck while landing, killing pilots Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther. An air traffic controller had cleared the truck to cross the runway just 12 seconds before the plane touched down, federal investigators said.

The flight, a CRJ900 regional jet from Montreal, had more than 70 people on board. About 40 people, including the two people in the fire truck, were taken to hospitals. A flight attendant still strapped in her seat survived after being thrown onto the tarmac.

The fire truck was leading a convoy of six vehicles, including four fire trucks, a stair truck, and a police vehicle, responding to an emergency involving a strong odor reported in the cabin of an outbound United Airlines jet.

The tower at LaGuardia was busier than usual the night of the crash because flight delays pushed the number of arrivals and departures after 10pm to more than double of what was scheduled, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Planes were landing every few minutes, with a dozen flights arriving between 11pm. At the same time, the tower was coordinating the emergency response to the unusual odor that was making flight attendants feel ill.

LaGuardia is one of 35 major US airports with an advanced surface surveillance system to help eliminate dangerous runway incursions and prevent crashes. Controllers at these airports have a display in the tower that’s supposed to show the location of every plane and vehicle.

The system, known as ASDE-X, didn’t work as intended at the time because the fire truck wasn’t outfitted with a transponder, investigators said. There were also emergency vehicles behind the truck, and the proximity of the vehicles merging kept the system from triggering an alarm, investigators said.

According to air traffic control transmissions, the plane was cleared to land on runway 4 at 11.35pm.

About 2 minutes later – and 25 seconds before the crash – the fire crew asked to cross the same runway, which was between the airport’s fire station and where the United Airlines jet had parked.

Five seconds later, with the Air Canada flight approaching the runway a little more than 100 ft (30 meters) above the ground, an air traffic controller cleared the fire truck to cross the runway.

Then, just 9 seconds before the crash, the controller frantically told the fire crew: “Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Truck 1. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.” A second later, the plane’s landing gear touched down.

It was the first deadly crash at LaGuardia in 34 years.

Surrey Police said following its “thorough investigation” into the incident, which sparked protests and public disorder in the town, they now believe the woman concerned “sustained an accidental head injury” following a night out and made “a confused report”.