ALLEN, Texas (SONNA) \u2014 A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others \u2014 three critically \u2014 before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims 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.<\/p>\n
The shooting, the latest eruption of what has been\u00a0an unprecedented pace of mass killings in the U.S., sent hundreds fleeing in panic. Barely a week before, authorities say, a man\u00a0fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas,\u00a0after a neighbor asked him to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept.<\/p>\n
A 16-year-old pretzel stand employee, Maxwell Gum, described a virtual stampede of shoppers. He and others sheltered in a storage room.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started running. Kids were getting trampled,\u201d Gum said. \u201cMy co-worker picked up a 4-year-old girl and gave her to her parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dashcam video that circulated online showed the gunman getting out of a car and shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off.<\/p>\n
Allen Fire 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.<\/p>\n
Three of the wounded were in critical condition in the evening, Boyd said, and four were stable.<\/p>\n
An Allen Police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the police department wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the United States this year: an average of about one a week, according to a\u00a0database\u00a0maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.<\/p>\n
Source: AP<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ALLEN, Texas (SONNA) \u2014 A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others \u2014 three critically \u2014 before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said. Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":416547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-416546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416548,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416546\/revisions\/416548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}