World News | What to know about the Texas mall mass shooting

ALLEN, Texas, May 11 (AP) A neo-Nazi killed eight people and wounded seven in four minutes at a Dallas-area mall before police Only then did the atrocities end, which may have saved countless lives.

Saturday’s massacre left hundreds of shoppers at Allen’s Outlets scrambling for cover in stores, storage rooms and enclosed hallways. Allen, a multicultural suburb of 105,000, has become America’s latest neighborhood rental as violence erupts in a year of mass killings at an unprecedented rate.

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The victims included three members of a Korean-American family, two young sisters and an engineer from India. Authorities said they had not yet determined a motive for the shooting.

Authorities have acknowledged the authenticity of a social media account in which the shooter had no criminal record and displayed a fetish for white supremacy while offering hints of research and planning that are chilling in retrospect.

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Below is information about the shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets.

How did the shoot unfold?

The gunman stepped out of a silver sedan Saturday afternoon and began shooting pedestrians, cars and glass storefronts with an AR-15-style rifle — one of eight legally purchased firearms he took to the mall, according to authorities.

Witnesses recalled hearing dozens of shots as shoppers scrambled for shelter, and store workers pulled people into back rooms and rolled down metal doors for protection.

“We started running. The kids got trampled,” said Maxwell Gum, a 16-year-old pretzel stand employee. “My colleague picked up a 4-year-old girl and handed her over to her parents.”

Outside the locked room, security guard Christian Lacourt was shot as he was helping someone to safety and trying to evacuate others, Allen Police Chief Brian Harvey said at a news conference Tuesday.

An Allen officer who happened to be nearby killed the gunman within four minutes of the attack beginning, saving “numerous lives,” authorities said.

Shoppers hid in storage rooms for an hour or more as police cleared the sprawling mall store-by-store. When they were allowed to leave, some walked past blood-stained bodies on the ground.

Fontayne Payton, 35, who was at H&M when he heard the shots, recalled seeing small bodies wrapped in white towels and praying they were not children. “When I went out and saw it, I was sad,” he said.

Who is the victim?

Neo-Nazi victims represent a cross-section of an increasingly diverse Dallas suburb.

Sofia Mendoza, a second grader at Cox Elementary School, and her older sister, Daniela Mendoza, a fourth grader, were also among them. Principal Christa Wilson called them “the kindest and most thoughtful pupils” in a letter to parents. Their aunt Anabel Del Angel said their mother was injured.

“The girls left a void that nothing in the world can fill. Please pray for their mom, my sister and her broken heart,” Del Angel wrote in a GoFundMe-verified fundraising post.

Three members of a Korean-American family were killed: Kyu Song Cho, 37, and Cindy Cho, 35, and their 3-year-old son. Another 6-year-old son was injured. Kyu Cho is the managing partner of the law firm Porter Legal Group. “He was loved and respected,” the company said.

Members of the Chao family said in a statement Wednesday that their surviving son, William, is “recovering well” and their focus is on ensuring he “lives a happy, healthy life with his extended family.”

Security Lacourt, 20, has been known to stop by the mall’s Tommy Hilfiger clothing store.

“He’s very young, very sweet and always comes to visit us,” said Andria Gaither, the store’s assistant manager, who fled the gunfire on Saturday.

Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26, from India, is the daughter of a judge in Hyderabad. She holds a graduate degree in construction management and works as a civil engineer with Perfect General Contractors in the Dallas area.

“She came to the U.S. with a dream to start a business, start a family, own a home and live forever in Dallas,” company founder Srinivas Chaluvadi said in an email.

Elio Cumana-Rivas, 32, was also killed, authorities said. Cumana-Rivas, who is originally from Venezuela, had moved to the United States “in search of the American dream,” his brother Gregory Smith Cumana said, according to ABC News.

Hank Sibley, the regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said that so far, the shooter did not appear to be targeting people based on race, age or gender.

“It seemed to me that he was targeting a location rather than a specific group of people,” Sibley said Tuesday.

Who is the shooter?

Police identified the shooter as Mauricio Garcia, who lives in Dallas.

Garcia, 33, has left a long string of posts online describing his white supremacist and misogynist views. He described the mass shooting as a movement and posted photos showing his giant Nazi tattoo and a favorite passage from the Hunger Games book with a swastika drawn in green highlighter.

He is Latino and posted a cartoon showing a Latino kid standing at a fork in the road with a sign saying “Black Acts” in one direction and “Be a White Supremacist” in the other.

“Think I’ll try my luck with white supremacists,” he wrote.

Other posts show that Garcia visited the mall in the weeks before he began filming and studied when it was busiest – the same time and day as his attack.

An Army official told The Associated Press that Garcia failed to complete basic training and was fired for mental health reasons. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, discussed personnel issues. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)