Updated 1:26 PM EDT, Mon May 8, 2023
CNN
—
The second-deadliest US mass shooting of the year unfolded at a shopping mall in an affluent Texas suburb, leaving eight victims dead and investigators probing whether the killer may have been driven by right-wing extremism.
Authorities have not announced a motive for why the gunman, 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, unleashed a hailstorm of bullets Saturday at Allen Premium Outlets – about 25 miles north of Dallas.
Garcia served in the military for a brief period but was removed due to concerns about his mental health, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation tells CNN.
The source could not specify the branch Garcia served in or what time period. CNN has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.
Garcia, who was killed at the scene by an Allen police officer who was on a nearby call, was wearing an insignia that authorities believe may be associated with extremist groups, a senior law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Investigators have unearthed an extensive social media presence, including neo-Nazi and White supremacist-related posts and images that authorities believe Garcia shared online, according to the source.
The indiscriminate slaughter marks yet another mass tragedy at a public place where many Americans had felt safe – such as schools, supermarkets, parks and Fourth of July parades.
The massacre in Allen is the second-deadliest so far this year, behind the January mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, that left 11 people dead.
Across the country, the US has suffered at least 202 mass shootings within the first five months of this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit and CNN define mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter.
Among the eight killed in Allen was Aishwarya Thatikonda, who was visiting the mall with a friend, CNN affiliate WFAA reported.
Thatikonda was an engineer who lived in nearby McKinney, but her family is mourning her loss from their home in India, a family representative told WFAA. The family plans to have her body sent to India, the representative said. CNN has reached out to the consulate general of India in Houston for more information.
Christian LaCour, a 20-year-old mall security guard, was also killed in the massacre. LaCour was “a sweet, caring young man who was loved greatly by our family,” his sister Brianna Smith said.
LaCour was “the kind of person who would just walk into the store and everyone in the room would light up because he was there,” said Max Weiss, a mall store employee.
Witness and Army vet demands change, not thoughts and prayers
Steven Spainhouer rushed to the gruesome scene after receiving a call from his son, who works at the mall’s H&M store and was hiding in a break room.
When Spainhouer arrived, he “started counting the bodies on the ground … one, two, three, five, six, seven bodies,” he told CNN.
“The first girl I walked up to … I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side, and she had no face,” Spainhouer told CNN affiliate KTVT.
He said one child survived after his mother shielded him from the bullets. But the mother was struck and killed.
“When I rolled the mother over, he came out,” Spainhouer told KTVT. “He was covered from head to toe, like somebody had poured blood on him.”
Spainhouer, a former police officer and Army veteran, said the degree of carnage at the mall was “unfathomable.”
“It’s tough when you see a family that’s out shopping, having fun, get wiped off the face of the Earth,” he told KTVT.
Now, he’s calling for gun reform – not just thoughts and prayers.
“If you don’t change our gun laws, put red flag laws in place and take the high capacity weapons of the street, it’s going to happen again,” Spainhouer told CNN.
“If we don’t do something other than giving prayers and best wishes when tragedy happens it will happen again. It could happen to you.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/08/us/allen-texas-mall-shooting-gunman-monday/index.html