OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire inside a
crowded shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, killing
eight people and then himself, police said.
Five people were wounded in the rampage at the Westroads Mall, two
of them critically, according to hospital spokesmen. One man with a
chest wound was in surgery.
Witnesses reported hearing as many as two dozen gunshots, telling a
local television station the gunman shot one man in the head from a
third-floor balcony and others at point-blank range as he moved
through the mall.
"It was horrible, just horrible," one woman told KETV, saying she
hid under a clothes rack when the shooting started.
Another witness at the mall, busy with pre-Christmas shoppers, said
she heard someone shout: "It's a gunman, run!"
Most of the victims were shot inside one department store and the
motive for the rampage was still being investigated, said Sgt.
Teresa Negron of the Omaha Police Department.
"We do not believe that we have any other shooter," she told
reporters. "The person we believe to be the shooter has died of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Mass shootings periodically shock the United States, where gun
ownership is widespread and the right to bear arms is a hotly
contested constitutional issue.
In mid-April, Virginia Tech university became the site of the
deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history when a student
killed 32 people and then himself.
In October 2006, a milk truck driver tied up and shot 10 Amish
schoolgirls in their classroom in Pennsylvania, killing five of
them before turning the gun on himself.
According to KETV in Omaha, the county sheriff's office said it was
given a note involving a 19-year-old man that could be interpreted
as "suicidal." The note was found by someone after the shooting,
although it was not clear where.
One woman told KETV she saw the gunman firing into the air inside
the department store.
"I saw the guy in the children's department. He was tall, real
tall," she said. "He had his hand straight up in the air, just
shooting, not saying anything."
Jeffrey Peck, manager of a leather goods store, said mall workers
ran up to tell him to close up his store.
"I told the customer to go into the back room and, as I was
shutting the gate, I heard two gunshots ring out," he said.
Some of those shot were waiting in line to get Christmas presents
wrapped at Von Maur, an upscale department store and one of the
anchors of the mall.
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 George W. Bush gave an address in Omaha on Wednesday
morning but had left the city hours before the incident.
