Two Charged After Stabbing at Four Seasons Mall Leaves Man Hospitalized

A dispute inside Four Seasons Town Centre in Greensboro turned violent Sunday evening, leaving one man hospitalized with life-threatening stabbing injuries and leading police to a second injured victim blocks away. Officers responded to the mall at 410 Four Seasons Town Centre around 6:01 p.m. for a reported aggravated assault, and within minutes their investigation had spread well beyond the shopping center's walls.

According to the Greensboro Police Department, officers located a man suffering from injuries consistent with a stabbing and transported him to a local hospital for treatment. Detectives with the department's Criminal Investigations Division then identified a second injured victim five minutes away in the 2800 block of Vanstory Street, according to Star News TV, expanding the scene from the mall's retail corridor to a residential street nearby.

An eyewitness account cited by the Greensboro News and Record indicates the confrontation escalated from a verbal argument inside one of the mall's retail stores before it turned physical. Police have not publicly detailed what the argument was about, and the department's own release offered no additional information beyond confirming the assault and the response.

Two Men Face Very Different Charges

Greensboro police have charged 19-year-old Caden Lipscomb with simple affray and carrying a concealed gun. Under North Carolina General Statute § 14-33, simple affray is a Class 2 misdemeanor covering two or more people fighting in public to the terror of onlookers, according to guidance from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

Twenty-year-old Israel Pickard was charged with affray, carrying a concealed gun, and possession of a stolen firearm. That last charge carries far heavier stakes: possession of a stolen firearm is a Class H felony in North Carolina, punishable by up to 25 months in prison, per the Gross Law Group. Carrying a concealed gun without a valid permit, by contrast, is only a Class 1 misdemeanor. That split leaves Pickard facing significantly more serious legal exposure than Lipscomb despite the pair being charged out of the same incident.

Detectives with the Criminal Investigations Division are still working to identify everyone who was involved, and the investigation remains ongoing. The Greensboro Police Department is asking anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers at 336-373-1000.

A Mall With a History of Weapons Incidents

Both charged men are 19 and 20 years old — just above the age threshold covered by the mall's own youth-supervision rules. Four Seasons Town Centre maintains a Parental Guidance Required policy requiring visitors 17 and younger to be accompanied by a parent or supervising adult 21 or older during weekend evening hours, according to the mall's own policy posted by Four Seasons Town Centre. It's unclear whether that policy has any bearing on Sunday's incident, since both men charged are legal adults.

This is not the first time weapons have turned up inside the mall. In March 2023, Greensboro police responded to an active shooter call inside the Round1 bowling and arcade facility at Four Seasons after a 26-year-old man fired a handgun inside the venue, according to reporting from WFMY News 2. A separate dispute inside Round1 in January 2022 also ended in gunfire, hospitalizing one person and sending police searching for three juvenile suspects.

The mall's grounds have seen worse. In February 2017, a parking lot shooting outside the JCPenney at the property resulted in the death of an adult male, according to the Greensboro Police Department's own historical accounting on Facebook. Four Seasons Town Centre opened in 1974 as Greensboro's first enclosed shopping center and remains the only enclosed indoor mall operating within city limits, spanning more than 1 million square feet across three levels, according to background compiled from the property's ownership records.

Part of a Broader Pattern in Greensboro

Sunday's stabbing is not an isolated case for the city this year. Greensboro police investigated another commercial stabbing back in April, when a 52-year-old woman was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill after stabbing a Walmart employee in the neck during a parking lot altercation on West Wendover Avenue. That case, like Sunday's, drew a rapid police response to a commercial property in the city.

For now, key questions remain open. Police have not identified either stabbed victim publicly, and it is not clear which of the two charged men, if either, is accused of actually wielding the knife involved in the stabbing. Investigators have also not said whether additional suspects beyond Lipscomb and Pickard remain under scrutiny as the Criminal Investigations Division continues working the case.