Yet another mass-shooting in America…

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Seattle Times....

Three shot dead, two wounded in Burlington mall, suspect at large

By PAIGE CORNWELL and JESSICA LEE | 10:09PM PDT - Friday, September 23, 2016


Police work the scene at the Cascade Mall in Burlington Friday night after four people were shot.
 — Photograph: Dean Rutz/The Seattle Times.

BURLINGTON — Five people were shot — three fatally — in the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Skagit County on Friday evening, and officers were fanned out searching for the shooter, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The three dead are all women, Washington State Patrol Sergeant Mark Francis said.

One man in critical condition was flown to Harborview Medical Center and another person has non-life-threatening injuries. It isn't clear if there were any other victims.

Law enforcement previously said four people were fatally shot. Shortly before 10 p.m., the number of fatalities was reduced to three.

Francis said the suspected shooter, a man, was last seen walking west toward Interstate 5 from Cascade Mall. A search at the mall and surrounding area was under way.

Emergency medics entered the mall escorted by police, Francis reported. Some people were still possibly holed up in the mall.

The three people killed were shot in the Macy's store, the State Patrol said.

“Shooter(s) left scene b4 police arrived,” he said in the tweet shortly after 8 p.m. “Unknown # of shooter, possibly just 1, police clearing mall now.”

The trooper provided no other details on the man, other than that he is Hispanic and wearing a black shirt. Police released a security-footage photo of the man shortly after 9 p.m.



Around 9:20 p.m., police were swarming an area directly across I-5 from the mall. Police were telling people to “get out of here immediately, you're not safe here.”

Residents in the area were being told to stay inside and call 911 if they see anything suspicious.

One person was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said around 9:30 p.m. The hospital didn't anticipate any additional arrivals.

It's unclear if there were more victims. No other details on the deceased was immediately available.

People who were inside the mall were being taken to His Place Community Church near the mall, Francis said.

Skagit County Department of Emergency Management urged people to avoid the mall area. State transportation officials asked drivers to avoid the freeway near Highway 20, as well.

Heading to Seattle on the freeway, Ben Hagood was driving through the area around 7:40 p.m. and said he saw dozens of police vehicles, including just 15 and 20 near a storefront at the mall alone.

Burlington-Edison's football game against Lakewood at Burlington-Edison High School was postponed, according to media reports.

Governor Jay Inslee released the following statement:

“Tragedy has struck in Washington tonight,” he said in a statement. “Our hearts are in Burlington where a shooter has taken the lives of at least three people.”

The shooting marks Washington's sixth mass shooting with at least four people who were fatally shot or wounded this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In the most recent shooting, people were shot to death at a house party in Mukilteo in July.

The nonpartisan organization, based in Washington, D.C., tracks and verifies incidents around the country, defining “mass shootings” as any single incident in which four or more people are fatally shot or wounded, not including the shooter.

• PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Shooting at Burlington mall

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/authorities-looking-for-gunman-in-burlington

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

As police track down another mass killer,
a Washington town grieves

By LRNET TURNBULL and DARRYL FEARS | 7:45PM EDT - Saturday, September 24, 2016


Emergency personnel stand in front of an entrance to the Cascade Mall at the scene of a shooting where several people
were killed in Burlington, Washington. — Photograph: Stephen Brashear/Associated Press.

BURLINGTON, WASHINGTON — Police continued to search Saturday for a gunman who disappeared after fatally shooting five people at a mall in a rural town in western Washington.

They circulated several images from a surveillance camera showing a man with dark hair in a black, short-sleeved shirt, shorts and shoes entering the Cascade Mall in Burlington empty-handed on Friday evening, then later brandishing a rifle in a Macy's department store, but authorities said they did not have a confirmed identity for the shooter nearly 20 hours after the incident.

His victims were also not named. Lieutenant Chris Cammock of the Mount Vernon Police Department said early Saturday that investigators were not prepared to disclose their identities. Four women died at the scene, and a man died from his wounds after being rushed to Skagit Valley Hospital.

Hayley Thompson, the Skagit County coroner, said the victims would be identified only after she examines their bodies at the hospital.

As of Saturday morning, Thompson said that she had not entered the crime scene and that the bodies had not been transported. Police said the ages of the victims ranged from a teenager to a senior citizen.

The fifth mass shooting in Washington this year sent shoppers running out of the mall and plunged a small town into grief.

Burlington sits between Seattle and Vancouver, Canada, near the border. Its population is about 8,500 — 62 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic — and the median household income is significantly lower than the state average. The nearest city is Mount Vernon.

“There are people waking up this morning, and their world has changed forever,” Burlington Mayor Steve Sexton said at a news conference. “This was a senseless act. It was the world knocking on our doorstep, and it came to our little community here.”

Sexton said he was aching for the moment when authorities “bring this son of a bitch to justice.”

An FBI spokesman said on Saturday that although the bureau could not rule out terrorism as a motive for the shooting, there was no evidence to suggest that it was.

Oscar Garcia, a resident of Mount Vernon, said the youngest victim was a 15-year-old girl who was in the makeup department of Macy's with her mother when the gunman approached.

Police did not confirm that account. Garcia, who described himself as a family friend of about four years, said he spoke with the father. “He's devastated,” Garcia said of his friend. “When I talked to him, he was waiting to go see his daughter.” The girl attended Conway Middle School and is thought to be the youngest victim.

Burlington residents gathered at a local park to pray and honor the victims. The Reverend Ron Deegan, who said that he and his wife were at the movies inside the mall when the shooting occurred, was among them.

Five minutes into the film, police stepped in and ushered everyone out of the theater, said Deegan, who serves as a pastor at three local churches. The granddaughter of a member of one of those churches was working at a beauty salon in the mall.

Workers there herded customers into a restroom when the shooting started. “Looking beneath the door, they said they saw male shoes go by and they held their breath,” Deegan said. When police arrived to let them out, several patrons fled with rollers and other products in their hair.

Shoppers who spoke to local media outlets told similar stories of a chaotic scene that followed gunshots in a mall that includes a 14-screen AMC movie theater, Chuck E. Cheese's and the Children's Museum of Skagit County.

“Someone ran by and said, ‘There's an active shooter in the mall’ and told us to lock our gate,” Doc Barron, who had been teaching a boxing class at the mall, told the Skagit Valley Herald.

Tari Caswell said she was in a women's dressing room at Macy's when she heard “what sounded like four balloons popping, and I thought that was strange because I hadn't seen any balloons,” the newspaper reported.

“Then I heard seven or eight more, and I just stayed quiet in the dressing room because it just didn't feel right,” Caswell told the Herald. “And it got very quiet. And then I heard a lady yelling for help, and a man came and got me and another lady, and we ran out of the store.”

Armando Patino told KOMO News that he helped frightened shoppers hide inside the T-Mobile store where he worked after people began realizing there was a gunman in their midst.

“Out of nowhere I just hear somebody yell, and then after that, I turn around and just look at the Macy's and I just hear shots,” Patino told the station. “I turn around and run to the store. Some people didn't know where to go. I just moved them into the [T-Mobile] store. We went in the back where we have a door and everything, and we just stayed there until they told us to evacuate.”

Search teams using a helicopter and K-9 units scoured the area for the shooter, who fled on foot, authorities said.

Police offered a description of the shooter, saying he is possibly Hispanic because of a dark complexion. But there was nothing else to inform that very general description, Cammock said, and he could be of any ethnicity.

“When he exited the scene, I can't speak to routes and things like that right now,” Cammock said. “It would be speculation.”

Eleven search teams and two K-9 teams spent several hours clearing and securing the mall. Police said they spent over an hour interviewing more than 20 witnesses at the mall.

“One of the most difficult moments last night was knowing there was family out there worried about their loved ones” as investigators shut down the 434,000-square-foot mall and investigated the crime scene, Cammock said.

• Lornet Turnbull reported from Burlington.

• Darryl Fears has worked at The Washington Post for more than a decade, mostly as a reporter on the National staff. He currently covers the environment, focusing on the Chesapeake Bay and issues affecting wildlife.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • GRAPHIC: 50 years of mass shootings in the U.S.

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: The scene after a gunman killed 5 at a Washington state mall

 • Police continue search for gunman who killed 5 at a Washington state mall

 • Radical Islam accounts for few recent mass shootings — but also some of the deadliest

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-police-track-down-another-mass-killer-a-washington-town-grieves/2016/09/24/4048c304-8286-11e6-8327-f141a7beb626_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Baltimore Sun....

City police: eight people shot near Greenmount, Preston

By CATHERINE RENTZ | 10:12PM EDT - Saturday, September 24, 2016


Baltimore police respond to the scene of a reported shooting involving multiple
victims Saturday evening at Greenmount Avenue and Preston Street.
 — Photograph: Catherine Rentz/The Baltimore Sun.

BALTIMORE POLICE said that eight people — including a 3-year-old girl — were injured on Saturday evening in a shooting in the area of Greenount Avenue and Preston Street.

Spokesman T.J. Smith said via social media that all injuries were considered non-life-threatening, and that suspects had fled on foot after the shootings. On his Twitter account he referenced three suspects — one with a shotgun, two with handguns. No additional information was immediately available.

Police at the scene had blocks taped off, and officers had marked several areas on the street were they found shell casings on Preston between Greenmount and Homewood avenues.

Several residents were gathered outside as officers worked the scene.

Charles Pullen, 45, said he was sitting on the steps of the liquor store at the corner of Greenmount and Preston and took cover when he heard the shots. “It was like they were bouncing off the walls,” he said. “It was like World War II going on.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-multiple-shooting-0925-20160924-story.html