A black-clad gunman with two duffel bags and an AR-15-style rifle begins “spraying bullets” in the aisles of an Oregon Safeway before being shot dead.
The attacker, clothed in all black and carrying two duffel bags, shot and killed two individuals and wounded a third.
Around 7 p.m. on Sunday, a shooter began “spraying gunfire” outside the Forum Shopping Center in Bend, Oregon. Police rushed to the Safeway grocery store but discovered the gunman dead from a gunshot wound.
Uncertain whether the shooter committed suicide or was killed by an armed member of the public.
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 found dead himself by investigators.
In approximately 7:04 p.m. local time, police responded to multiple 911 calls from Safeway at the Forum Shopping Center in the central Oregon city, where scared consumers alleged a black-clad man was’spraying rounds’ with an automatic rifle in the parking lot.
The mystery shooter 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 back of the shop.
A third shopper was shot but is currently in stable condition.
Minutes later, when police arrived at the location expecting a gunfight, they discovered te shooter dead inside the business, having been shot himself.
It is unclear whether 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 evidence of a second shooter.
More over fifty percent of Oregonians own firearms, and open carry of firearms is permitted statewide without a permission, although concealed carry of handguns requires a license.
A scene photograph depicting the damaged storefront windows of the Bend, Oregon Safeway after the tragic shooting.
Sheila Miller, a spokesman for the Bend Police Department, stated that the incident began in the adjacent Big Lots before a person shot and murdered a person at the entrance to Safeway.
Social media images and videos depicted a major police response at the mall. The Bend Police Department has warned citizens to avoid the area.
According to Lisa Goodman, a representative for the St. Charles Health System, one patient was pronounced deceased upon arrival at St. Charles Bend hospital, while another was in stable condition.
Krantz stated during a Sunday evening press conference that police found an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun ‘in close proximity’ to the shooter, but he refused to name the attacker or his victims.
“This will require considerable time to gather evidence,” Krantz remarked. We recognize that this is a frightening situation for our community.
Sheila Miller, a spokesperson for the Bend Police Department, stated that the gunfire began in a Big Lots before the gunman moved to a Safeway, verifying that no one was harmed in the Big Lots.
Meanwhile, terrified shoppers described the commotion that ensued in the Safeway parking lot when the black-clad man began firing his automatic rifle.
Molly Taroli, 40, told The Bulletin that she and her husband were shopping for dinner at Safeway when a gunman went through the store “spraying gunfire.”
Taroli told the newspaper that she retrieved her own revolver from her purse to defend herself when she heard employees yelling “go, go, go!” in an effort to assist people in evacuating the building.
Customers were brought inside the stockroom and exited via the rear exit.
An ambulance and EMS personnel are visible at the cordoned-off shooting scene in Bend, Oregon, last night.
After three individuals, including the shooter, were fatally shot at a Safeway, stunned customers waited in the parking lot.
Another shopper in 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 instantly turned to my children and yelled, “Run!”” People were shouting. It was a frightening experience.
The proprietor of a nearby food cart, Jessica Swartz, said she did not hear the gunshots, but she knew something was wrong when her customers departed in a “mass exodus.”
“I feel as though we’ve become a statistic,” she added, referring to the staggering number of mass shootings that have recently rocked the United States.
In May, a man killed 10 people with an AR-15 in a racially motivated hate crime in Buffalo. Yesterday’s massacre at Safeway occurred only a few months later.
Payton Gendron, age 18, faces a mandatory life term and the possibility of the death penalty after he fired 60 rounds at black individuals at the Tops supermarket while using a map to organize his attack.
Why the AR-15 is the preferred weapon of mass shooters
Waffle House, Parkland, Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Waffle House.
All have witnessed gun violence perpetrated by a murderer wielding an AR-15 or AR-15-style assault weapon, the weapon of choice for mass shootings in the United States.
The NRA has dubbed the AR-15 “America’s Most Popular Rifle,” and it is estimated that there are eight million of these deadly and affordable firearms in the United States.
It is accurate, reasonably light (6.55 pounds), and has a low recoil.
Gun experts assert that mass shooters’ preference for AR-15s is primarily due to a ‘copy cat’ attitude rather than superior gun expertise.
These are some of the most notorious mass shootings involving an AR-15 in recent years:
James Holmes, 24, uses an AR-15-style.223-caliber Smith & Wesson rifle with a 100-round magazine, among other weaponry, to kill 12 and injure 58 in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado on June 20, 2012, while disguised as The Joker from Batman.
Adam Lanza, age 20, kills 20 children between the ages of six and seven and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. Prior to driving to school, he murdered his mother at their Newtown residence. His armory included a Bushmaster AR-15 from which he fired over 150 rounds in less than five minutes.
Syed Rizwaan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, use two AR-15-style.223-caliber Remington rifles and two 9mm handguns to kill 14 and injure 21 in San Bernardino, California, on December 2, 2015, before being slain by police.
Omar Mateen, 29, enters the Orlando Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016 with an AR-15-style rifle – a Sig Sauer MCX – and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol, killing 49 and injuring 50.
Stephen Paddock, 64, uses a large arsenal of weapons, including an AR-15, to kill 58 and hurt hundreds more at a Las Vegas music festival on October 1, 2017. He need not even leave his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel, which overlooks the festival, in order to commit the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. He kills himself in the room.
Devin Kelley, 26, uses an AR-15-style Ruger rifle to murder 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on November 5, 2017 before being murdered.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, kills at least 17 students and teachers with an AR-15-style weapon on February 14, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Cruz has been apprehended and is presently awaiting trial.
Travis Reinking, 29, opens fire on a Waffle House in Tennessee on April 22, 2018 with an AR-15-style rifle, killing four people and injuring two others. James Shaw Jr., who concealed behind the restaurant’s restrooms and rushed the shooter while wrestling the rifle away, prevents him from committing additional murders. The shooter is apprehended 24 hours later.
John Timothy Earnest, 19, kills one woman and injures three others, including a rabbi, at a Poway synagogue outside San Diego on April 27, 2019. He is captured and subsequently sentenced to life without parole.
Seth Aaron Ator, 36, shoots seven people to death and 25 others, including three police officers, with an AR-15-style weapon on August 31, 2019 in Midland and Odessa, Texas, after being fired from his work. After encountering Ator outside of a movie theater, police shoot and kill him.