Person with a gun shot, killed by police at North Carolina mall

One person was fatally shot by police responding to a fight inside a mall packed with Christmas shoppers on Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina, emergency officials said.

Officers working as off-duty security responded to an altercation between two groups of subjects and shot a person with a gun, a spokesman with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said.

Officials said the situation appears contained.

"There was one armed subject that was shot during the altercation and he was pronounced deceased on scene by Medic. No officers were injured during this shooting," spokesman Keith Trietley said in a statement.

The mall has been secured with no continuing threat, said Jeff Keith, deputy director of the Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency.

"With all the things that have occurred in this country in the past couple of years, we want to assure people that this is an isolated, specific event, not of any random nature," he said, without commenting on the reports of the death.

Witnesses told WSOC TV that two young people got into a fight and one shot the other. Police then intervened and shot the person with the gun.