ALLEN, Texas (AP) — Hundreds of terrified shoppers fled in a panic after a man got out of a silver sedan and began shooting at a Dallas-area outlet mall, killing eight people and wounded seven before being shot to death by a nearby police officer, according to authorities.
The shooting in Allen, Texas, was a new episode in an unprecedented succession of mass murders in the United States. Just a week earlier, according to authorities, a man fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor told him to stop shooting because a baby was trying to sleep.
Police did not immediately provide details about the victims at the Allen Premium Outlets, a large outdoor mall, although witnesses said they saw children among them. Some also reported seeing what appeared to be an unconscious police officer and compound security guard on the ground.
A 16-year-old employee of a pretzel stand, Maxwell Gum, described a stampede of customers. He took refuge with other people in a warehouse.
“We ran out, people were stepping on the boys,” Gum said. “My co-worker picked up a 4-year-old girl and gave her to her parents.”
Video circulating on social media taken with a vehicle’s camera showed a gunman getting out of a car outside the mall and shooting people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle that recorded the video drove away.
Allen Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd said seven people, including the shooter, died at the scene. Nine people were taken to area hospitals, but two of them died.
Three of the victims were in critical condition Saturday night and four were in stable condition, Boyd said.
An Allen police officer was responding to another emergency in the area when he heard gunshots in the mall at 3:36 p.m., the Police Department wrote on Facebook.
“The officer confronted the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called emergency personnel,” he added.
Massacres in the United States are occurring with astonishing frequency this year: an average of about one a week, according to an AP/USA Today analysis of data in collaboration with Northeastern University.
US President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and the federal government has offered support to local authorities, according to the White House. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed laws relaxing gun restrictions after previous mass shootings, called the incident an “unspeakable tragedy.”
Aerial images of the site broadcast live by television showed armored trucks and other vehicles of the security forces outside the compound. More than 30 police cars with lights on blocked access to the place and several ambulances could be seen. The town of about 105,000 is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas.
Fontayne Payton, 35, was in an H&M store when she heard the shots through her headphones.
“It was very loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.
People in the store dispersed before employees led them into fitting rooms and then into a lockable back room, he explained. When they were given the green light to leave, Payton saw broken windows in the store and a trail of blood to the door. Nearby were abandoned sandals and bloody clothing.
Outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray they weren’t kids, but they looked like kids,” she said. The bodies were covered in white towels, collapsed on bags on the floor. “It tore me apart when I came out to see that.”
A little further away he saw the body of a burly man dressed in black. He assumed the shooter, he said, because unlike the other corpses it wasn’t covered.
___
Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas contributed to this report.