Gunman Kills 8 People, Then Himself at a Mall in Omaha
By MARIA NEWMAN
A gunman killed eight people at a mall in Omaha this afternoon and then killed himself, setting off bedlam and panic among holiday shoppers, the police said.
“The person who we believe to be the shooter has died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds,” Sgt. Teresa Negron of the Omaha Police Department said at a televised news briefing late this afternoon after the police had secured the area.
“We have been able to clear the mall,” she said. “We don’t believe we have any other shooters.”
She also said that nine other people had been injured in the shootings, some of them with critical injuries.
Sergeant Negron said that the shooter was a man, but that investigators have not yet confirmed his identify, including his name, age or address.
“We are still conducting the investigation,” she said, adding that the mayor, who was out of town, was on his way back to Omaha.
The shootings at the Westroads Mall in on the west side of Omaha broke the usually banal routine of holiday shopping. The gunman was said by some witnesses to have fired about 20 shots into a crowd at the Von Maur department store.
“Can anybody make sense out of this?” one shopper tearfully told MSNBC after running out of the mall.
"There was breaking glass,” one woman told KETV in Omaha, saying she hid under a clothes rack when the shooting started. “It was horrible, just horrible."
Another witness said she heard someone shout, "It’s a gunman, run!" and saw bullet casings cascading off the mall balcony, The Associated Press reported.
Witnesses reported hearing as many as two dozen gunshots, and some told local television stations that they saw people shot in the head.
Jeffrey Peck, manager of a leather goods store, said mall workers ran up to tell him to close up his store, The A.P. said.
"I told the customer to go into the back room, and as I was shutting the gate, I heard two gunshots ring out."
Shoppers and store workers were trapped inside the mall, which has roughly 135 stores, and huddled behind locked doors or inside dressing rooms. Others streamed out of mall exits with their hands raised.
President Bush was in Omaha this morning to deliver a speech, but he had left the city by the time the shootings took place.
Officials of Von Maur Inc., a Midwestern department store chain, offered its condolences to victims in a statement after the shooting, saying, “We are deeply saddened by the horrific shooting at our Omaha store this afternoon.”
"The shootings at the Westroads Mall in on the west side of Omaha broke the usually banal routine of holiday shopping."
um
The shootings at the Westroads Mall in on the west side of Omaha interrupted the petty, meaningless lives of the attendant proletariats and made them crave their usual typical, selfish routine of snuck sips of rum and Dr. Phil reruns.
(http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/12/05/mall.shooting/art.2048.hawkins.school.jpg)
Another dude with depression/mental health history. And based on his appearance I'm guessing he played videogames :/
it's a male cloudwalking
it's a male cloudwalking
Sergeant Negron:lol
(http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/12/05/mall.shooting/art.2048.hawkins.school.jpg)BLOODWAKE NOOOOOOOOOO
Another dude with depression/mental health history. And based on his appearance I'm guessing he played videogames :/