Survivors have told of their fear and sorrow after a shooting at a popular outlet mall in the U.S. state of Texas on Saturday left nine people dead, including the shooter, and seven others wounded, once again re-opening the debate over gun control laws, Reuters reports.
The deadly incident occurred at the Allen Premium Outlets in a suburb about 48 km north of Dallas. The mall, the largest in the area, is typically busy during the weekends, according to locals. Police say the mall will remained closed until Tuesday while further investigations continue.
Local media has reported that the heavily armed lone shooter has been identified as Mauricio Garcia, a 33-year-old male who was a suspected white supremacist and neo-Nazi sympathizer. No motive has yet been found.
Members of the local community are still coming to terms with the tragedy, with many survivors are still in a state of shock.
One young eyewitness described the horrifying moments as the shooting unfolded, including the terrifying sounds of the gunfire, and said she remains fearful that such an attack could re-occur.
"When we were running, the shots got closer to us, like really, really close, and I thought they were running towards us since we were all running around and there were more people running around us. I felt really scared because many people were running for their lives and some people didn't survive. Some got injured. I'm still feeling scared because it could happen to us at school, it could happen to us at another mall," said Daina Floris, a survivor.
Her father Elda Floris also expressed his sorrow for those who lost their loved ones in the heart-wrenching shooting, and prays that this will never happen again.
"I just want to say stop to the shooter because everybody has family and I'm really sad for the families, they lost their people, their family [members]. So it's really hard because I love my family, I don't want to do this again, to feel this again," he said.
Some people living nearby also came to the site to mourn the victims. One local man said it is time for politicians to seriously acknowledge the severity of the gun violence issue which continues to plague the U.S., and to take action to halt it.
"Our hearts are broken about it. There's a crisis in America. I think it's a political system that would rather blame the other party, as opposed to seeing that we have we have a major mental health crisis in America," said Cody, a local resident.
As of Sunday, a total of 14,684 people had been killed and 11,638 injured in gun violence gun incidents across the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
