Mass shooting in US state of Texas leaves at least 9 dead, including gunman

A gunman shot and killed eight people and wounded at least seven others on Saturday at a mall near Dallas, Texas, before a police officer killed him, as mass shootings in the US reached nearly 200 so far this year.

The gunman, identified as Mauricio Garcia, 33, began firing outside of the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas, the city's police chief Brian Harvey said at a press conference.

Garcia was fatally shot by a police officer who happened to be near the shopping outlet.

The attacker, who turned an afternoon of shopping into a massacre, had posted messages on social media that expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views.

There has been an unprecedented pace of mass killings this year in the US, with at least 198 so far in 2023.

The mass shooting figure is the highest since at least 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as any in which four or more people are wounded or killed, not including the shooter.

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