WASHINGTON - At least three people were killed Sunday when a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall in Kansas City, Missouri, police said.
The gunfire sent shoppers scrambling for cover at the Ward Parkway Center, a popular shopping plaza in the midwestern state of Missouri, witnesses said.
Police spokesman Tony Sanders said the gunman shot and killed two people in the parking lot of the mall, and said the shooter was gunned down by police who responded to the scene.
At least two people were wounded as well as one police officer, Sanders told CNN.
Police were investigating whether the incident was related to an earlier shootout with police at a nearby gas station, Sanders said.
The shopping center had been entirely locked down and investigators were treating it as a "giant crime scene," he said.
Television footage showed armed police running toward the mall and one man who was apparently wounded in the shooting, sitting on a curb with blood streaming down his face as he covered one eye with a piece of cloth.
One shopper, Cathy Crist, told the Kansas City Star newspaper she had been eating lunch inside the mall when she heard shots that seemed to come from the parking lot outside.
She heard women scream, "Hes killing us," before she dove under a table for cover, the report said.
The shootings came less than two weeks after a mentally ill South Korean college student went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech university, killing 32 people before turning his weapon on himself.
04/29/2007 23:55 GMT