Two people were killed Tuesday when a gunman wearing body armor opened fire at a mall in the western US state of Oregon, witnesses and local media reported.
At least one other person was shot in Clackamas, south of Portland, according to The Oregonian newspaper, reporting a man brandishing a semiautomatic rifle near a branch of Macy’s department store.
It cited one of its staff, sports columnist John Canzano, as reporting that as many 60 shots fired while he was shopping at the mall. Live TV pictures showed a large number of emergency vehicles converging on the scene.
“Shooting at Clackamas Town Center. Multiple police at the scene. If you do not need to be at the mall, please stay away,” the Portland Police Department said on its Twitter feed.
KATU television cited a man called Sam, who was at the mall, as saying that “a bunch of people were screaming and running by and kind of in a panic and they were yelling that there was a shooting.”
“It was shot after shot after shot after shot, like a massacre. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kira Rowland, who was at the mall with her six-month-old baby son, told KATU.
“I’m really freaking out right now,” she added. “We just ran like hell. Everybody was just screaming.”
A correspondent for the TV station cited another witness as saying the gunman was wearing a white mask, body armor and carrying an assault rifle.
It was not immediately clear whether the gunman was still at large.
Two dead in US mall shooting: reports
