More than 30 shoppers were injured Saturday when a suspect sprayed a strong repellent inside a Miami-area store, police said.
After taking candles by force from the Bath & Body Works at Miami International Mall in Doral, Florida, the suspect fled in a yellow taxi, said Doral Police spokesman Rey Valdes.
Police had not yet made an arrest.
"We started coughing, actually, where we were, and we weren't even that close," a shopper told NBC Miami. "We felt it. We could smell it. We could breath it."
A manager who was sprayed directly in the face was hospitalized, the TV staton reported.
The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue department did not immediately respond to a request for information about the status of the shoppers.
Valdes said the repellent might have been bear spray, which is more potent that pepper spray.
