Nine people are dead after a lone gunman opened fire and shot indiscriminately in a shopping center north of Dallas in Texas, USA. Several people are being treated for injuries.
Police were alerted to the shooting at the mall in Allen in the afternoon local time.
A man allegedly drove up to the mall in a silver car, got out and started shooting people indiscriminately.
The authorities confirmed after several hours that nine people had been shot dead.
– We found seven dead people at the crime scene. We drove nine people to hospital. Of those we drove to hospital, two have died, says Allen’s emergency manager Jonathan Boyd, according to AFP.
“Neutralized the threat”
Authorities have confirmed that the suspected shooter is one of the nine dead and that the person must have acted alone.
A police officer who was on the scene for another case heard gunfire at 3:36 p.m. local time.
“The police found the shooter and neutralized the threat,” writes the Allen police on Facebook.
Fontayne Payton was inside an H&M store in the mall when the shooting broke out.
– It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside, says Fontayne Payton.
Jaynal Pervez rushed to the mall after calls from his daughter.
– When I arrived, I saw the police outside the door. They asked us to leave because they were still looking for the shooter, he says.
“Looked like a child”
The people who were in the store disappeared in all directions before the staff managed to collect them and take them first to the fitting rooms and then into a locked room.
When they were later given the go-ahead to leave the store, Payton saw broken windows and traces of blood. Once outside the store, he also saw bodies on the ground.
– I hope it wasn’t a child, but it looked like a child, he says and explains that the bodies were covered with white towels.
So far this year, there have been more than 195 mass shootings in the United States, defined as shootings with four or more people killed or injured, according to the independent organization Gun Violence Archive.