Texas mall shooting leaves 1 dead, 3 injured

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — One person was killed and three others were shot and injured at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas on Wednesday, city police said.

One person has been arrested, said El Paso police spokesman Sgt. Robert Gomez. No information about the person has been released at this time.

Another individual may be involved, Gomez said, and police are looking for him. No description was offered.

A weapon was recovered from the site, the sergeant added, but did not provide further details.

“It’s too early to speculate on a motive,” Gomez said.

The three injured people were hospitalized, the spokesperson added.

The University of El Paso Medical Center said in a statement that two men with gunshot wounds were being treated there. They were in critical condition.

The condition of the third injured person was not known at this time.

Gomez said police believe the mall is already safe and officers are checking the property to verify it.

“It’s a really big site,” Gomez said. “It’s going to take time to clean up the mall.”

The authorities have set up a meeting center in a nearby high school.

Earlier, police said the shots were reported in the mall’s food court.

Wednesday’s incident at the Cielo Vista mall happened in a busy shopping area and very close to a Walmart where 23 people were killed in a 2019 racist attack.

The United States has recorded dozens of deaths in mass shootings so far in 2023, last Monday at Michigan State University, where three students were killed and five others injured. In January, 11 people were killed in the city of Monterey Park, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as the Lunar New Year struck.

In 2022, there were more than 600 mass shootings in the United States in which at least four people were killed or injured, according to Gun Violence Archive.