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EL PASO, Texas — Multiple people were killed and one person was in custody after a shooter went on a rampage Saturday at a shopping mall, police in the Texas border town of El Paso said.
Police responded in the early afternoon to an active shooter scene at the Cielo Vista Mall, which is near Interstate 10 on east side of the city, and were advising people to stay away from the area.
Shortly after, Sgt. Enrique Carrillo, a police spokesman, said a suspect was in custody and there was no longer danger to the public.
El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in West Texas and sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico.
Presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke appeared a bit shaken as he appeared at a candidate forum in Las Vegas on Saturday shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported.
O’Rourke said he had called his wife before taking the stage and said the shooting shatters “any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable” on tackling gun violence.
The Democrat said he’d heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield and do not bring it into our communities.”
“We have to find some reason for optimism and hope or else we consign ourselves to a future where nearly 40,000 people are year will lose their lives to gun violence and I cannot accept that,” O’Rourke said.