Yesterday evening, a gunman wearing all-black entered a grocery store in Bend, Oregon, and shot and killed two individuals with an AR-15 before being discovered dead himself by investigators.
In around 7:04 p.m. local time, police responded to several 911 calls from Safeway at the Forum Shopping Center in the central Oregon city, where scared consumers alleged a black-clad guy was’spraying rounds’ with an automatic rifle in the parking lot.
The mystery gunman entered the Safeway with a rifle in hand and two duffel bags in tow, and shot one person at the door before stalking down the aisles and shooting a second victim near the rear of the shop.
A third shopper was shot but is now in stable condition.
Minutes later, when police arrived at the location anticipating a firefight, they discovered the gunman dead inside the business, having been shot himself.
It is unclear if the gunman committed suicide or was killed by a member of the public equipped with a firearm, but Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz stated that no shots were fired by police and there was no indication of a second shooter.
More over fifty percent of Oregonians own weapons, and open carry of firearms is permitted statewide without a permission, although concealed carry of handguns requires a licence.
Krantz said during a Sunday evening press conference that police found an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun ‘in close proximity’ to the shooter, but he declined to name the attacker or his victims.
‘This will take along time to collect evidence,’ Krantz said. ‘We know this is a frightening thing for our community.’
Sheila Miller, a spokesperson for the Bend Police Department, said that the gunfire started at a Big Lots before the shooter proceeded to a Safeway, verifying that no one was harmed in the Big Lots.
Meanwhile, terrified customers described the commotion that ensued in the Safeway parking lot as the black-clad guy started firing his automatic rifle.
Molly Taroli, 40, told The Bulletin that she and her husband were shopping for supper at Safeway when a gunman walked through the store “spraying shots.”
Taroli told the newspaper that she retrieved her own revolver from her handbag to protect herself when she heard staff shouting “go, go, go!” in an effort to assist others in evacuating the building.
Customers were carried inside the stockroom and exited by the rear exit.
Another customer at the store, Josh Caba, told KTVZ that he was in the store with his four children when they heard many gunshots.
Caba told the news source, “I immediately turned to my children and said, “Run!”” People were screaming. It was a horrifying experience.”
The proprietor of a neighbouring food cart, Jessica Swartz, claimed she did not hear the gunshots, but she realised something was wrong when her customers departed in a “mass exodus.”
“I feel as if we’ve become a statistic,” she added, alluding to the staggering number of mass shootings that have recently rocked the United States.
At May, a man killed ten people with an AR-15 in a store in Buffalo. Yesterday’s Safeway incident occurred mere months later.
Payton Gendron, age 18, faces a mandatory life term and the possibility of the death penalty for a horrendous hate crime in which he targeted black individuals with 60 bullets at a Tops supermarket after drawing a map of the shop to plot his assault.