i m fredricka whitfield. we begin in texas wihere a weekend shopping trip turned to carnage. eight dead, seven wounded after a gunman opened fire into a crowded space at an outlet mall in allen, texas. that s just north of dallas. a warning, some of what you re about to see is disturbing. a witness dash cam capturing the moment the killer got out of his car and immediately began firing, ambushing unsuspected people walking by. we re pausing this video before the shooting begins, but other witnesses were recording as the attack unfolded. what you hear are multiple rapid gunshots and you see, of course, people running for their lives. a photo obtained by cnn appears to show the gunman after he was shot by a responding officer. you can see an ar-15 style rifle nearby. the gunman is clad in black, body armor, and appears to have several extra magazines strapped to his chest. ed lavandera is on the scene there in allen, texas. ed, what more are police saying, if anything, at thi
Lives. those are victims as much as someone. [ no audio ] . i know how to process this ptsd. i have talked to combat vets and police officers that i know. i will get help. my son is getting help. the biggest help is the help we can give to our nation. i love guns, i love the second amendment, i own guns, i teach people how to shoot guns, but we don t need these high capacity weapons on our streets. you want to have a shotgun, a pistol, that s fine with me. but we have got to change the narrative. i m telling you, i m going to say something to our texas governor. all the prayers and thoughts and well wishes are great, in a time of tragedy, but if you don t change our gun laws, put red flag laws in place and take the high capacity weapons off the street it s going to happen again. i don t care if it s in uvalde, allen, texas, el paso, texas, i don t care if it s in chicago, atlanta or any other place. if we don t do something other than giving prayers and best wishes when tragedy happens
We managed to clear one store, second store, i called my son and said the police are coming in. we found two victims in h&m. police officers ran across the parking lot and got another ambulance. there was another shooting on the other side i m finding out now, the shooter had been engaged. we got those two victims out and to the hospital. i stayed until we got [ no audio ] i knew which stores cleared. the allen police are heros, the paramedics are. [ no audio ] those are the heros. they did their job and well. the signal is very poor right now and i know you have just said, you know, with clarity that the allen police are heros, but so are you.
Front door of h&m and it was a guy on the phone begging for help, and he didn t speak a lot of english. i took the phone from him and told the operator, i started counting the bodies on the ground i have one, two, three, five, six, seven bodies. i said [ no audio ] for mass casualties it would be another six minutes before the first allen police officer showed up. i the first girl i went to, and this is pretty graphic, she was in the bushes in a fetal position like she was praying and i didn t feel a pulse. i pulled her head back to see if she was okay and there was nothing left of her face or head. it was gone. i went to a second victim, and she was not breathing. eyes were fixed and dilated.
The guy held his neck like this and there was blood dripping down, you know, and then we went inside and then i had two people in front of me, go down. we all went down. i heard three shots, pop, pop, pop, like right on the other side. reporter: so, fredricka, the major headlines this afternoon, the texas department of public safety the lead agency in this investigation and city of allen officials are saying there will be no press briefings and updates on what transpired here yesterday. fredricka? that is striking, ed lavandera, some 24 hours after that would take place, just shattering a community of allen, texas. of course, it would be nice if there were changes and we learn more information. we know you ll bring it to us as we know. no scheduled press conference from law enforcement there. all right. today, president biden ordered flags to be lowered to half staff for what he called the senseless acts of violence that was seen in allen, texas.