Armed-to-Teeth Mass Killer Kills 8, Wounds 7 at Texas Mall

A gunman rampaged through an outlet mall in a Dallas suburb on Saturday—killing eight people and wounding seven others before being shot dead by police.

A photo of the suspect—now being identified as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia—showed him clad in black from head to toe, wearing body armor, and carrying multiple ammunition clips.

A rifle resembling an AR-15—the weapon used in mass shooting after mass shooting—was shown nearby.

Local news outlet WFAA reported late Saturday that FBI investigators and police visited a home in northeast Dallas where the shooter is thought to have lived. They interviewed family members and hauled boxes of evidence from the home.

Neighbors said that Garcia lived with his parents and often wore a security-guard uniform. It’s not clear if he has any connection to the Allen Premium Outlets, where the deadly mass shooting took place.

Graphic video shared online showed victims, including children, motionless on the floor of the mall, which is about 25 miles from Dallas.

Abu Akther, who was with his wife and 1-year-old child at the shopping center, described “mayhem and panic” as people scrambled to hide. He told Fox 4 DFW he tried to help a woman who was shot in the side, ushering her into a store for shelter.

“That’s when she said, ‘I don’t know why I am shot. What is going on?’ And I saw blood pouring out of her stomach,” he said, adding that he then “heard at least 30 gunshots in rapid concession.”

The gunfire erupted at around 3:40 p.m., sending shoppers fleeing for the exits and racing out of the area amid a hail of bullets. Harrowing dashcam footage apparently filmed in the parking lot showed a man pull up in a silver or gray vehicle, get out, and appear to fire at random at people on the sidewalk. Witnesses said the man appeared to be wearing tactical gear.

“He pretty much was walking down the sidewalk and… was just shooting his gun everywhere for the most part,” a witness told CNN.

Dyshaun and Shell’a McDaniel told The Daily Beast they were getting into their car with their kids after a shopping trip when they first heard gunshots, but they didn’t realize what had happened until they stopped at a gas station across the street to get ice cream.

“Next thing you know... we see people flooding over there, screaming, and the police rushing over to the scene,” Dyshaun said. “We, like, literally just left the scene... where the person was shooting.”

Shell’a said she was trapped in the gas station for 10 minutes after other survivors began streaming in and the owners locked the front doors.

“One couple... came in and they had all their clothes and everything,” Shell’a said. “[One woman] was completely shaken up, and she was screaming, like, ‘Active shooter! Active shooter!’”

The couple told Shell’a they had run out of the store where they had been shopping when they began to hear gunshots, ignoring employees who had tried to get them to stay inside.

Dyshaun called the experience “surreal,” but said he has been telling his children to “stay alert” in preparation for a moment like this.

“It’s more... heartbreaking that you even have to have a conversation like this, you know, and then they get the realization that everything dad’s been telling us is true,” Dyshaun said.

A man named Joseph Adams who was shopping with his 12-year-old son told the Dallas Morning News he initially thought a “car had driven through the front of the building” when the gunshots rang out.

“That’s how loud it was,” he said.

After fleeing, he said, he drove past and saw at least four people lying on the sidewalk. He tried to help those wounded, including a child shot in the neck.

“People were yelling for help, for ambulances, as cops drove by looking for the shooter. It was just chaos. I did everything I could think of to help, and as a teacher, all I want to do is help kids, but it’s horrible to think it was at the risk of my own kid seeing it.”

In comments to CBS News, a witness named Steven Spainhouer said he had tried to help those struck by gunfire.

“The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face,” he said.

He said he also found a child who had survived thanks to his mother shielding him—but she didn’t make it.

“When I rolled the mother over, he came out. I asked him if he was OK and he said, ‘My mom is hurt, my mom is hurt,’” he said, adding that the child was “covered from head to toe… like somebody poured blood on him.”

Fontayne Payton told the Associated Press he sheltered inside a store and then walked outside after the all-clear was given to see several bodies on the ground.

“I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. “It broke me when I walked out to see that.”

Allen Police Chief Brian Harvey said an officer who was in the area on an unrelated call heard the gunshots, rushed over and “neutralized the shooter.” He said police believe the man acted alone.

In a familiar pattern, the shooting immediately became a political issue, with gun-control advocates deriding Republican politicians for offering thoughts and prayers but saying nothing about firearms access.

Right-wing commenters on social media feverishly speculated that the shooter was Hispanic and could be an undocumented immigrant, even though police had not released a name or any biographical information.

However multiple outlets on Sunday reported that Garcia’s potential ties to right-wing extremism are being investigated as a possible motive.