Global Courant 2023-05-07 06:19:36
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
Police in the US confirm the number of fatalities, but say they cannot confirm how many people died in the shooting in Allen, a suburb of the city of Dallas.
A gunman shot and wounded several people in a busy shopping mall in the United States city of Dallas, killing an unknown number of people.
Emergency services said at least nine injured, including children, were rushed to hospitals in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday.
The gunman, who authorities said acted alone, was killed by a police officer after he began firing outside the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, a suburb north of Dallas, police said.
“He heard gunshots, went to the gunshots, engaged the suspect and neutralized the suspect,” the city’s police chief Brian Harvey said at a news conference. “He also called ambulances.”
Harvey confirmed there were deaths but declined to give a death toll, saying “We don’t have an accurate count”.
Jon Boyd, chief of the Allen Fire Department, told the same press conference that his department has taken at least nine gunshot victims to area hospitals. He did not say what condition the victims were in and added that there may have been more injuries.
Medical City Healthcare, a hospital system in the Dallas area, said in a written statement it was treating eight people between the ages of 5 and 61.
Their terms were unknown.
Shoppers evacuate as law enforcement responds to a shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets in the Dallas area in this freeze-frame video (ABC Affiliate WFAA via Reuters)
TV aerial footage showed hundreds of people calmly walking out of the mall, located about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Dallas, after the violence unfolded, many raising their hands as dozens of police officers stood guard.
The footage also showed blood on sidewalks outside the mall and white sheets resembling bodies.
Fontayne Payton, 35, told the Associated Press news agency he was in the H&M store when he heard the sound of gunfire through the headphones he was wearing.
“It was so loud it sounded like it was outside,” Payton said.
People in the store dispersed before employees led the group into the fitting rooms and then into a lockable back room, he said. When they were cleared to leave, Payton saw that the shop had broken windows and a trail of blood leading to the door. Discarded sandals and bloody clothes lay nearby.
Once outside, Payton saw bodies.
“I pray they weren’t kids, but they looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered with white towels and slumped over sacks on the floor, he said.
“It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said.
Ahead he saw the body of a heavyset man, dressed all in black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies, it wasn’t covered.
A second unidentified witness told local ABC affiliate WFAA TV that the shooter was “walking down the sidewalk just… shooting his gun outside” and that “for the most part he was just shooting his gun everywhere.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the shooting an “unspeakable tragedy” and said in a written statement that the state was ready to provide whatever assistance local authorities need.
Allen, Texas, is a community of about 100,000 people.
Mass shootings have become commonplace in the US, with at least 198 so far in 2023, the most at this point in the year since at least 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The nonprofit defines a mass shooting as a shooting in which four or more people are injured or killed, not counting the shooter.
The US has the highest number of gun deaths of any developed country, with 49,000 recorded in 2021, up from 45,000 the previous year.
