A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall on Saturday, killing eight people and wounding seven — three critically — before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said.
Authorities did not immediately provide details about those killed or injured at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center, but witnesses reported seeing children among them.
Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
Photo: Reuters / ABC Affiliate WFAA
The shooting, the latest eruption of what has been an unprecedented pace of mass killings in the US, sent hundreds fleeing in panic. Barely a week earlier, a man fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked him to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept.
A 16-year-old pretzel stand employee, Maxwell Gum, described a virtual stampede of shoppers. He and others sheltered in a storage room.
“We started running. Kids were getting trampled,” Gum said. “My coworker picked up a four-year-old girl and gave her to her parents.”
Photo: AFP
Dashcam video footage that circulated online showed the shooter getting out of a vehicle and shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off.
Allen Fire Department Chief Jonathan Boyd said seven people, including the shooter, died at the scene. Nine victims were taken to area hospitals, but two of them died.
Three of the wounded were in critical conditions in the evening and four were stable, Boyd said,
A local police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36pm, the Allen Police Department wrote on Facebook.
“The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel,” it added.
Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the US this year. There has been one on average per week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
The White House said that US President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting and his administration had offered support to local officials.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called it an “unspeakable tragedy.”
Fontayne Payton, 35, was at an H&M store when he heard the sound of gunshots through his headphones.
“It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.
People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said.
When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes lay nearby.
Once outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said, adding that the bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground.
“It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said.
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