EL PASO, Tx. (Reuters) – A shooter killed multiple people at a WalMart in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, sending panicked customers fleeing as a shopping mall was put on lockdown in the latest U.S. mass shooting.
Mayor Dee Margo told CNN the shooting resulted in multiple fatalities. Few details were immediately available. The El Paso Police Department said the scene around the Cielo Vista Mall remained active.
“We have multi reports of multiple shooters … police conducting search of a very large area,” the department wrote on Twitter.
Multiple law enforcement agencies raced to the scene, including police, state troopers and multiple federal agencies including Homeland Security agents and border patrol.
One witness said he saw at least one person inside the store with a fatal head wound, and he saw shoppers in bloodied clothes.
Other stores at the nearby mall were also locked down as police officers cleared the shopping center in the east of the city, which lies on the southern U.S. border with Mexico.
Video posted on Twitter showed customers at one department store being evacuated with their hands up.
“Hands in the air!” an officer can be heard shouting in the footage.
Mass shootings are common in the United States. On Sunday, a teenage gunman opened fire with a an assault-style rifle on the crowd at a food festival in Northern California, killing three people before fatally shooting himself.
Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Susan Thomas