On the 6th (local time), ‘Allen Premium Outlets’, 30 minutes by car from Dallas, Texas, USA. It was a Saturday, a week before Mother’s Day (14th) in the US, so shoppers flocked to buy gifts.
3:36 p.m. A silver sedan stopped in the parking lot close to the outlet store. The man who got out of the car immediately stood up straight and started shooting at him without stopping. Eight people were killed, including the family of a Korean-American, Jomo, who was present at the scene. Three of the seven injured are also in critical condition. Police authorities said that the injured, ranging in age from 5 to 61, were taken to the hospital, including the 5-year-old son of the deceased Cho’s eldest son.
A Korean resident in the Dallas area said, “There were a lot of people going to the shopping mall as it coincided with Korean Parents’ Day.”
“It was a terrible scene that is hard to see even in the military.”
Former soldier and police officer Stephen Spainhauer drove to the outlet, startled by a phone call from his son saying there was a shooting. His son was an outlet worker. He told CNN he was shocked to see the seven dead people lying on the floor. He also said that he had taken out a live young boy from the bed of his dead mother. It appears her mother was trying to protect her child, he said.
Kimberly Blakey, who was present at the scene, said she and her daughter sprinted into the parking lot the moment the shooter started shooting. “The shooting continued without interruption,” he said. Panicked, he drove the car toward the shooter, but was hit by two bullets in the process of restarting.” It is said that in fear, they went all the way home without knowing that the tire was flat. The outlet quickly turned into mayhem as hundreds of people evacuated.
The nightmare ended when the gunman Mauricio Garcia (33), who was indiscriminately attacking with an automatic rifle A-15, was shot dead by police on the spot. As another report, a police officer who happened to be at a nearby shopping mall fought on the spot and subdued the corporation.
Although the U.S. authorities are keeping quiet about the identity of the dead and injured, the fact of the sacrifice spread through local communities, such as the Korean church, such as that the Cho couple did not attend the church meeting they were supposed to come to. According to local media, the second-generation Korean American husband Cho and wife Kang, both of whom are American nationals, have earned good reputations in the local community as lawyers and dentists, respectively. Another victim identified by the US media was Christian Laqua, 20, who was a security guard working at an outlet. On the 7th, Dallas and Allen residents gathered at the outlet to mourn the victims with candles.
The police also found weapons other than the AR-15 in the car and the motel where they were staying. It is understood that Garcia received firearms proficiency training in order to work as a security guard. According to Texas state law, he was licensed to work as a security officer from 2016 to 2020 and has worked for three actual security companies, CNN reported.
Garcia is said to have posted hundreds of racist posts on social media, including neo-Nazi ones. It is known that the police authorities are also investigating Garcia’s values on a regular basis, targeting his family. Foreign media are also paying attention to the fact that the Dallas area, which Garcia chose as the place of crime, is a place with a high Asian density. According to the US Census Bureau, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area to which the city of Allen belongs is considered a place with a high rate of increase in Asians. In May of last year, a man in his 30s broke into a hair salon in Dallas Koreatown and fired 13 shots from a .22 caliber rifle, injuring three Korean women, and the 30-something perpetrator was put on trial for a hate crime.
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Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.