Texas shooting kills at least 8 people, injures 7 others; gunman killed

At least eight people have been killed and seven others, including children, injured by a lone gunman at a shopping mall near the city of Dallas in the US State of Texas.

The gunman in Saturday shooting, whom authorities say acted alone, was killed by a police officer after he began firing outside of the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas, the city’s police chief, Brian Harvey, said.

According to local officials, the wounded were transported to nearby trauma facilities.

Allen Fire Department chief, Jon Boyd, said his department took at least nine victims with gunshot wounds to area hospitals.

“(We) found seven deceased individuals on scene. We transported nine individuals to the hospital… Of those we transported, two have since died,” he said.

Medical City Healthcare, which runs 16 hospitals in the area, said in a statement that its trauma centers were treating eight of the wounded victims, who ranged in age from 5 to 61, but did not say what condition they were in.

The gunman “was walking down the sidewalk just…shooting his gun outside,” an unidentified eyewitness told reporters, adding, “He was just shooting his gun everywhere for the most part.”

A video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot as gunfire could be heard in the background, while aerial footage of the scene also showed a large group of people walking out of the mall as scores of police stood guard.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has described the incident as an “unspeakable tragedy.”

“There’s no more safe places. I don’t know what to do,” a local was cited as saying.

The city of Allen is a community of about 100,000 people, located about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Dallas.

The shooting came as communities around the United States are reeling from a spate of school shootings, including the massacre at an elementary school in Texas last year, in which nineteen students and two teachers were killed.