Officials in the US state of Texas say “multiple people” have been killed during a shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso and at least one suspect has been taken into custody.
Texas police on Saturday said they had “multi reports” of multiple shooters in the Cielo Vista mall area on the outskirts of El Paso city.
At least two officials – the mayor’s chief of staff Olivia Zepeda and police spokesman Enrique Carrillo – told reporters that “multiple people were killed” in the shooting.
Carrillo later told reporters the attack had ended with a suspect taken into custody.
“We have between 15 and 20 casualties, we don’t know the number of fatalities,” Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick told Fox News network.
A University Medical Center of El Paso official later confirmed one of the 12 people received by the hospital has died.
Ryan Mielke, a hospital spokesman, also said two children, aged 2 and 9, were stabilised at the medical centre before being transferred to the neighbouring El Paso Children’s Hospital.
He added that all of the victims suffered traumatic injuries, but he did not elaborate.
Mayor Dee Margo✔@mayor_margo
Adair and I are devastated by the tragic events unfolding in our City. Our hearts go out to the victims and gratitude to our first responders. We will continue to keep you updated.
The White House said President Donald Trump has been briefed on the shooting and has spoken to Attorney General William Barr and Governor Greg Abbott.
Trump later said on Twitter the shooting was “very bad”.
“Terrible shootings in El Paso, Texas. Reports are very bad, many killed. Working with State and Local authorities, and Law Enforcement. Spoke to Governor to pledge total support of Federal Government. God be with you all!” Trump said.
“We are told that 18 people have been taken to hospital with injuries ranging from minor to critical. It’s thought the dead are among those 18,” he said.
A witness, who gave her name as Vanessa, said she had just pulled into the car park of the Walmart and “all of a sudden you heard what sounded like fireworks, really loud fireworks”.
“You could hear the pops, one right after another and at that point as I was turning, I saw a lady, seemed she was coming out of Walmart, headed to her car. She had her groceries in her cart and I saw her just fall,” she told Fox News.
The witness told Fox that she had seen one man open fire wearing what appeared to be combat fatigues.
“He was wearing a black T-shirt, camo coloured pants. He was wearing something to cover his ears, like headphones, really thick ones.
“He was wearing a black T-shirt, camo coloured pants. He was wearing something to cover his ears, like headphones, really thick ones.
“He was carrying a dark rifle and he was just pointing at people and just shooting and, yeah, the last thing I saw, he shot somebody that was in a corner.”
After seeing the woman fall in the parking lot, “that’s when I thought, okay, this is not – these aren’t fireworks … He was just shooting randomly.
