Authorities said Saturday that they have not identified a man who shot and killed five people at Cascade Mall in Burlington Friday night.
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A gunman opened fire at a mall in Washington state on Friday evening (September 23.) Police arrived at Burlington’s Cascade Mall at approximately 9:20pm, shortly after the shots were fired inside Macy’s.
At a news conference Saturday morning, Mount Vernon Police Lt. Chris Cammock said the female victims’ ages ranged from teens to seniors. Police described the shooter as a Hispanic man wearing black and armed with a rifle, according to the Associated Press.
The SMART team is now reconstructing the entire scene, conducting forensic scanning and collecting evidence.
Cammock said police had no clues about the identity or whereabouts of the suspect, and asked the public for help in tracking him down.
In the aftermath of the Cascade Mall shooting, twitter users questioned the shooter’s suspected nationality, with many believing the man to be Arabic, the inference being that the attack may have been a terrorist targeted attack.
Sgt. Francis of the state patrol said the numbers fluctuated as authorities searched the 434,000 square-foot mall and surrounding parking lot, which remain closed for the investigation. She said “it’s nerve-wracking” and she’s nervous about taking her 7-year-old daughter to her soccer game.
“Nobody knows who it is”.
And Tari Caswell, a shopper in the women’s dressing room in Macy’s told the Skagit Valley Herald she heard “what sounded like four balloons popping”. “And it got very quiet”, Caswell said. “We’re still trying to gather as many witnesses as we can to get more information”.
She said: “I’ve never been so terrified in my life”. “Stay indoors, stay secure”.
Injured people inside the mall, and survivors were be transported by bus to His Place Church on Pease Road and Burlington Boulevard.
A Burlington Police Dept. officer stands guard at a side entrance to the Macy’s department store at the Cascade Mall, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016, in Burlington, Wash.
“We urge residents to heed all safety and detour warnings”. It features J.C. Penney, TJ Maxx, and Macy’s stores, and a movie theatre.
A blurry surveillance photo of a rifle-toting man accused of shooting four women and a man dead at a Washington state mall could be the biggest lead in the hunt for the shooter.
Authorities offered no information about a possible motive for the attack, which followed a series of violent outbursts at shopping center across the United States, including the stabbing of nine people at a Minnesota center last weekend.
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“At this time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has no information to suggest additional attacks planned in WA state”, the agency said on Twitter.
