Residents and authorities in a Dallas suburb began processing Sunday’s shooting at a busy mall, where police say a gunman killed at least eight people, including children, and wounded at least seven others before a police officer killed him.
The shooting took place Saturday at the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas, about 25 miles north of Dallas, and turned a busy afternoon of shopping into chaos.
Here’s what we know about what happened.
How did the shooting go?
Gunfire erupted around 3:30 p.m. local time, police said, as crowds of shoppers filled the mall, which has more than 120 stores.
A video posted to social media appears to show a black-clad figure getting out of a silver car in a parking lot and opening fire.
Other videos circulating on social media shows people running for shelter or across a parking lot while loud popping noises are heard in the background.
Who’s the shooter?
Authorities have so far not identified the shooter or offered a motive for the shooting.
They said the person acted alone and a police officer, who was at the mall on an unrelated assignment, heard the gunfire, ran over and killed the gunman.
Police have not identified the officer so far.
Who were the victims?
Nine people, including the gunman, have been pronounced dead, police said.
Of the victims who were hospitalized, three were in critical condition and four were in stable condition. A spokesman for Medical City Healthcare, which treated victims at the three trauma centers, said those injured ranged in age from 5 to 61.
The victims have not been publicly identified.
In a statement on Sunday, President Biden said the dead included an unspecified number of children.
Geoffrey Keaton was having lunch with his 16-year-old daughter at the mall’s Fatburger when they heard gunshots.
“I put my daughter under the counter to protect her, and then they got louder, like he was there,” Mr Keaton said.
Mr Keaton said the restaurant manager had allowed customers to hide in the back where they then exited through a back door and ran to their cars.
A live stream from a local Fox television channel showed dozens of customers being evacuated from stores in an orderly fashion.
“It was a bit chaotic for a moment,” says Kaleo Palakiko, 36. “When someone said ‘Shooter,’ we all ran to the back of the store.”
Mr. Palakiko and his parents hid in a storage room for about 45 minutes before being released by the police and walking out with their hands in the air.
How does this shot compare to others this year?
Saturday’s attack is the second deadliest shooting of the year, following the January 21 massacre in Monterey Park, California, in which a gunman killed 11 people in a ballroom.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a database of shootings in the United States, there were 199 “mass shootings” in 2023, which the archive defines as the shooting of at least four people.
Last weekend, a gunman killed five people in Cleveland, Texas, near Houston, after neighbors asked him to stop shooting in his yard. He was captured after a multi-day manhunt.
On Monday, a registered sex offender shot and killed six people, including his wife and three of her children, near Tulsa, Oklahoma, before turning the gun on himself.
A gunman opened fire on an Atlanta medical office building on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring four others. That also led to a manhunt before the suspect was caught.