A man holding an AR-15 rifle He opened fire inside a Target store in Omahaprompting panicked shoppers and employees to seek safety before police shot him dead on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmader said the man had “a lot of ammunition” and that the evidence indicated he fired several shots, but it was not immediately known if he shot anyone.
Schmader said that no injured people were found and that the police searched the shop “because there are some people hiding there.”
One customer, Cathy Mahana, said the scene inside the store was “sheer panic”.
The 62-year-old was near the store entrance picking out Valentine’s Day gifts for her young grandchildren when she heard a loud bang. She thought something had fallen, and then she saw a crowd of people running towards the exit.
A shopper told her there was an active shooter, and she ran away. She heard at least one more shot in the store, and heard other noises when she was outside.
Mahana was so devastated that at first she couldn’t find her car and jumped into a car with a stranger.
“The moments in the parking lot were terrifying when I heard the gunfire and thought, ‘Where am I hiding?'” she said. I do not know what to do “.
There were several 911 calls just before noon, the police chief said, and officers were in the store within minutes.
“The first officers entered the building, confronted the suspect and shot him dead,” Schmader told a news conference about an hour after the shooting. He had an AR-15 and plenty of ammunition with him.
All guests and team members have been safely evacuated from the store, which will remain closed indefinitely, Target spokesperson Brian Harper Tibaldo said in a statement.
Lieutenant Neil Bonacci, a police spokesman, said officers are trained to enter such scenes quickly to prevent mass casualties.
“We’ve learned a lot from other jurisdictions, other regions, and other cities that have unfortunately experienced this,” he said. “We go in right away. We’re trained to do that. Whether it’s 1 officer or 10, we go in and neutralize the threat.”
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