* No details on identities of shooter, victims; type of
weapons used
* At least one person seriously wounded: sheriff’s spokesman
* Shoppers hid in store back rooms, shooting was near food
court
(Adds quotes from man in Santa suit, governor comment, details)
By Teresa Carson
HAPPY VALLEY, Ore., Dec 11 (Reuters) – A gunman opened fire
inside an Oregon shopping mall on Tuesday in the middle of the
busy Christmas season, killing at least two people and
terrorizing holiday shoppers before shooting himself to death,
police said.
The afternoon shooting rampage at the crowded Clackamas Town
Center in the Portland suburb of Happy Valley touched off panic
inside the mall, with shoppers streaming out as police and fire
crews arrived on the scene.
“I can confirm that we believe at this point that there was
one and only one shooter involved and that that shooter is
deceased,” Clackamas County Sheriff’s spokesman Lieutenant James
Rhodes told a press briefing.
“In addition to that, we have at least one patient who was
taken from the mall with a traumatic injury and at least two
that were deceased in addition to the shooter,” he added.
Rhodes said later that the suspect died from a
self-inflicted gunshot wound and that police had not fired a
single shot inside the mall. The wounded victim was taken by
helicopter to a hospital where a spokeswoman said she was in
serious condition.
The incident marked the latest in a string of shooting
rampages this year that included the killing of 12 people and
wounding of 58 others at a midnight screening of “The Dark
Knight Rises” in Colorado.
In Oregon, police evacuated terrified shoppers, who were
reported by local media and via Twitter to have hidden in the
back rooms of shops as gunshots rang out in the mall.
“Shooting in the middle of clackamas town center. I’m stuck
in the back room of build a bear!” one person tweeted.
High school student Hannah Baggs, 14, told the Oregonian
newspaper that she got a close look at the gunman before he
entered the mall and opened fire.
“He was, like, 10 feet away from us, wearing a white mask
and carrying something heavy with both hands,” Baggs said in
remarks carried on the newspaper’s website. “He went running
into the store.”
MAN IN SANTA SUIT ‘HIT THE FLOOR’
The Oregonian also said on its website that the gunman had
used a semi-automatic rifle and may have also been wearing body
armor, but police did not immediately confirm that. The paper
said the shooting occurred near the mall’s food court.
“All of a sudden I heard something similar to a .22 popping,
probably eight times, and people dropping everywhere, people
screaming,” witness Christina Fisher said in an interview aired
on CNN. “It was chaos.”
A man dressed in a red Santa suit and beard who said he
greets children at the mall told local KGW-TV that he heard some
15 gunshots and realized that there was a gunman on the loose.
“So I hit the floor,” the man told KGW-TV in an interview
outside the mall. “My crew that was working with me must have
left and everybody that was in the (Christmas) set must have
left, because when I got up there was nobody in the set but
myself.”
Police and SWAT teams established a perimeter around the
scene and worked to evacuate the mall as they searched for the
gunman. Video footage from inside the mall, aired on CNN, showed
shoppers heading toward exits with their arms raised above their
heads.
The identities of the dead and wounded were not immediately
released. A mall spokeswoman directed calls to law enforcement
authorities.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their
families,” Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber said in a statement
released by his office. “I appreciate the work of the first
responders and their quick reaction to this tragic shooting.”
(Reporting by Teresa Carson, Dan Cook, Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan
Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston,
Eric Walsh and Lisa Shumaker)
