Officials: Three dead at Kansas City shopping center
POSTED: 9:18 p.m. EDT, April 29, 2007
Story Highlights
• Three shot to death including shooter
• One police officer wounded in an earlier incident police believe was related
• Witness saw "a young man with a sawed-off shotgun" being chased by police
• Another victim shot to death at an incident -- possibly related -- 6 miles away
Adjust font size:
Decrease fontDecrease font
Enlarge fontEnlarge font

(CNN) -- A man with a gun shot and killed two people at a shopping center in Kansas City, Missouri, and wounded at least two others Sunday before being killed by police, a police spokesman said.

The gunman was killed after police confronted him inside the Ward Parkway Shopping Center, about nine miles south of downtown, shortly after 3:30 p.m.

"It appears that he came to the mall to shoot people," Sanders said. "Whether it was random or not -- we do not know."

Two people were killed and two others were wounded in a parking lot on the west side of the mall by the man, who then carried a long gun into the mall.(Watch a witness describe hearing shots and seeing people flee the mall Video)

"We went inside to the mall and that's when we confronted the man outside the Target store inside the mall and he was shot and killed by the officers," said Sanders, who added that police have no clue as to motive.

Witness Janet Coleman said she saw "a young man with a sawed-off shotgun" in the parking lot being chased by police.

"I could just see a blunt-sized gun bigger than, like a regular .44," she said, adding that she gained her expertise in weapons from watching "a lot of crime TV."

Inside, clothing store manager Lissa Young said "several rounds of gunfire" were followed by two customers who ran into the store and said shots had been fired. She said she immediately locked the doors and ordered the customers to the back of the store, where they waited until police gave them the all-clear.

And shopper Queea Miller said more gunfire took place in the parking lot.

"I was in my truck and the gunman was two cars over from me," she told CNN. She said she saw the gunman shoot in the direction of a Starbuck's coffee shop. "Then, after he stopped, he re-loaded and started shooting again."

She said during the shootings, she and her 18-year-old daughter "lay our seats all the way back and I got to praying. You could hear the shots going off again."

Then police, their guns drawn, began "coming from everywhere," she said.

In addition, in what police say is likely a related incident, a police officer was wounded in a shooting just over two miles from the mall, Kansas City police Sgt. Tony Sanders said.

The officer was shot through one arm, and his injuries were not life-threatening, the sergeant said.

"He had his wherewithal enough to put out a suspect description and direction of travel and vehicle," Sanders said.

And authorities are investigating whether a fourth death is connected to the Sunday afternoon spree.

Sanders said investigators are trying to determine whether an incident in which someone was killed at a home about six miles from the mall was connected to the mall shootings.

Police were combing through the mall Sunday evening to ensure that the gunman had no accomplices. Sanders called the building "a giant crime scene."

"We have hundreds of witnesses who were inside the mall when he came in. We have story employees," he said. "It was a Sunday afternoon at a mall in middle America, so you can imagine it was crowded."

Sadly, I don't even get surprised anymore when I read this stuff.

yeah. same here.

Sadly, I don't even get surprised anymore when I read this stuff.