Police respond to a shooting at The Maine Mall on Wednesday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

SOUTH PORTLAND — Shoppers and workers returned to The Maine Mall with mixed emotions on Thursday, the day after a shooting injured one person and led to the evacuation of the shopping center.

“It’s kinda freaky,” said Ann Marie King, 69, as she munched on pepperoni pizza from Amato’s in the food court.

King was at the mall just before noon Thursday, as she is most days, riding the bus from her home in Portland. She wasn’t there Wednesday, but she saw the news about the shooting and it frightened her.

She described the mall as her “home away from home.” The shooting threatened that sense of comfort, she said, but it couldn’t keep her away.

“I was a little nervous coming here today because I didn’t know what to expect,” King said. “The bus was a little late, so I thought the mall might have been closed.”

The mall was open as usual from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, although some stores closed early because of an afternoon snowstorm.

By Thursday morning, police announced that they had identified a shooting suspect, Ahmed Basheer Awad, 20, of Westbrook, and he turned himself into South Portland police around 3:30 p.m.

The shooting happened shortly before 3:45 p.m. Wednesday, when one man was shot in a bathroom near the food court. Awad was captured on surveillance video leaving through the food court exit, police said.

The man who was shot underwent surgery Wednesday night for a wound in his upper right leg and is expected to survive, police said.

Kathy Welle isn’t sure whether she heard shots fired Wednesday afternoon, but she was at work Thursday regardless.

The owner of What the Actual Fudge said she saw people running past her shop and other store operators closing their doors. She saw security personnel passing by and police arriving. She left when the mall was evacuated around 4:20 p.m.

“Clearly something had happened, but we never felt in danger,” said Welle, 59, of Freeport. “It could have happened anywhere. It didn’t happen here because the mall is an unsafe place.”

‘THIS IS OUR PLACE’

Welle returned to her gourmet sweet shop on Thursday, unwilling to let the shooting further diminish her business or her spirit.

“This is our place,” she said. “This is where we do business. This guy came in yesterday and hurt someone and scared a lot of people and destroyed our business day. We’ve given him enough. He doesn’t get to take more. That’s it.”

Akash Patel manages two kiosks in the mall — one selling crystal items and the other selling Croc charms. He didn’t work Wednesday, but he admits he had some reservations about going to work Thursday. His boss advised him to be calm and stay safe, he said.

“You sort of have to be comfortable,” said Patel, 23, of Portland. “It’s the only option we have.”

Andrew Plummer, 20, stopped by to grab lunch to go from Panda Express in the food court on Thursday. The Limington resident recently switched jobs and used to work at a restaurant near the mall.

Plummer said he was shocked when he heard about the shooting on Wednesday. He immediately thought of the shooting that occurred in December outside Kobe Japanese Restaurant, which is next to the mall. No one was injured in that incident. A suspect was arrested in January.

“I was like, ‘What’s happening to Maine?'” Plummer said. “When I was growing up, these things didn’t happen here.”

Plummer shops at the mall at least weekly and was drawn there Thursday to see if it was even open. He wondered whether anyone would be shopping or having lunch. He found the food court pretty quiet just before noon, with snow starting to fall as he returned to his car.

The shooting has left him feeling unsettled and vulnerable.

“It makes you realize there’s not a lot of security in places like this,” Plummer said. “Maybe there should be more. Maybe not metal detectors, but more security guards.”