3 dead, including gunman, in Oregon mall shooting

A tac­ti­cal team moves through the mall park­ing lot at Clacka­mas Town Cen­ter in Port­land, Ore., Tues­day. Wit­nesses say the scene went from cheery to chaotic in sec­onds when a gun­man opened fire in the sub­ur­ban Port­land shop­ping mall Tues­day, killing two peo­ple and wound­ing another. (For the Asso­ci­ated Press | Thomas Boyd)

STEVEN DUBOIS

Asso­ci­ated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — A gun­man opened fire in a sub­ur­ban Port­land shop­ping mall Tues­day, killing two peo­ple and wound­ing another as peo­ple were doing their Christ­mas shop­ping, author­i­ties said.

Wit­nesses described a scene of chaos and dis­be­lief as a gun­man wear­ing some sort of cam­ou­flage out­fit and what looked like a hockey mask fired rounds fire from a military-style rifle near the food court at Clacka­mas Town Center.

Par­ents with chil­dren joined other shop­pers rush­ing to stores’ back­rooms for safety as teams of police offi­cers began enter­ing the mall to find the shooter.

Clacka­mas County sheriff’s Lt. James Rhodes said later that the gun­man was dead, appar­ently from a self-inflicted gun­shot wound. A shop­per told KATU-TV he saw a man lying on the floor with a gun next to him.

Author­i­ties went store-to-store to con­firm that there was only one shooter and to escort hid­ing shop­pers out­side, Rhodes said.

Austin Patty, 20, who works at Macy’s, said he saw a man in a white mask car­ry­ing a rifle and wear­ing a bul­let­proof vest.

He heard the gun­man say, “I am the shooter,” as if announc­ing him­self, Patty said. He then fired sev­eral shots paced sec­onds apart.

A series of rapid-fire shots in short suc­ces­sion fol­lowed. Patty said he ducked to the ground and then ran.

His Macy’s co-worker, Pam Moore, told The Asso­ci­ated Press the gun­man was short, with dark hair, and dressed in camouflage.

“I heard about 20 shots and every­one hit the ground,” Moore said. “That’s when we all just ran.”

Wit­nesses said the mall’s Santa Claus was among those who ducked for cover.

The mall is one of the Port­land area’s busiest. It’s in a middle-class area that has become pop­u­lar with fam­i­lies as falling real estate prices have put its homes just a few miles from down­town Port­land within finan­cial reach.

The mall has about 185 stores and a 20-screen movie the­ater among anchor ten­ants that also include Nord­strom and J.C. Pen­ney. Sheriff’s deputies said it would remain closed dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion of the shoot­ing, but it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

Shaun Wik, 20, from Fairview, said he was Christ­mas shop­ping with his girl­friend Tues­day and opened a for­tune cookie at the food court. Inside was writ­ten “live for today, remem­ber yes­ter­day, think of tomorrow.”

As he read it, he heard three shots. He heard a man he believes was the gun­man shout, “Get down!” but Wik and his girl­friend ran. He heard seven or eight more shots. He didn’t turn around.

“If I had looked back, I might not be stand­ing here,” Wik said. “I might have been one of the ones who got hit.”

Kira Row­land told KGW-TV that she was shop­ping at Macy’s with her infant son when the shots started.

“All of a sud­den you hear two shots, which sounded like bal­loons pop­ping,” Row­land told the sta­tion. “Every­body got on the ground. I grabbed the baby from the stroller and got on the ground.”

Row­land said she heard peo­ple scream­ing and crying.

“I put the baby back in the stroller and ran like hell,” Row­land said. “It was awful. It was shots after shots after shots like a massacre.”

Holli Bautista, 28, said she was shop­ping in the Macy’s for a Christ­mas dress for her daugh­ter when she heard pops that sounded like firecrackers.

“I heard peo­ple run­ning and scream­ing and say­ing ‘Get out, there’s some­body shoot­ing,’” she told the AP. “It was a scene of chaos.”

She said hun­dreds of shop­pers and mall employ­ees started run­ning, and she and dozens of other peo­ple were try­ing to escape through an exit in the depart­ment store.

Bautista said the Macy’s opens into the food court area, where it was reported the shoot­ings took place. Bautista said it sounded like the shots were com­ing from that direction.

Tiffany Tur­getto and her hus­band had exited Macy’s through the first floor when they heard the gun­shots com­ing from the sec­ond floor of the mall.

“Peo­ple in front of us peo­ple were drop­ping, find­ing cov­er­ing,” she told the AP. “Peo­ple were yelling scream­ing and gasp­ing, yelling to get out.

“The lady next to us, she threw a chair and started run­ning. We couldn’t run because the chair was there.”

Tur­getto and her hus­band and other peo­ple were able to quickly leave through a Barnes & Noble book­store before the police arrived and locked down the mall.

“I had left my phone at home. I was telling peo­ple to call 911. Sur­pris­ingly, peo­ple are around me, no one was call­ing 911. I think peo­ple were in shock.”

Kae­lynn Keelin was work­ing at two stores down from Macy’s when the gun­fire began and watched win­dows to another store get shot out.

She and her Made in Ore­gon co-workers ran to get cus­tomers inside the store to take shel­ter, Keelin said.

“We got lucky we stayed in,” she said. “If we would have run out, we would have ran right into it.”

Posted by AP News on Dec 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.