PORTLAND — A shooter at Clackamas Town Center mall in Portland was dead Tuesday night after killing at least two people, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office reported.
The call came in to 911 around 3:30 p.m. Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office Spokesperson James Rhodes said at least two people were shot dead and one other was injured.
Officials said the shooter was dead shortly after the incident, but would not confirm if he was shot by police or killed himself.
Nearly 100 officers responded to the shooting located at 11900 Southeast 82nd Avenue in Portland. As of 5:39 p.m., people were still locked in the mall as police tried to clear the area, Rhodes said.
“We have nearly one hundred officers, from city, state, federal, local law enforcement, and teams carefully searching the mall for anybody else that might be injured,” Rhodes said. “We will search this entrie mall until we are certain it is secure and everybody has been removed.”
No details about the shooter’s motives or description were immediately available. The age and names of the victims were also not available.
“Where it began specifically in the mall is unclear,” Rhodes said. “There was multiple people, multiple witness accounts from inside the mall and various stores.”
Police said they believe only one shooter was responsible. The Oregonian reported that the man used a semiautomatic rifle and may have been wearing body armor. KPTV in Portland reported that witnesses said the shooter was tall and slender, and wearing a black hockey mask and carrying an assault rifle. The Oregonian’s sports columnist who was at the mall at the time said that as many as 60 shots were fired.
According to KPTV, workers at a Billabong store said they heard shots fired near the food court. The store had 14 people locked down in the store while investigators were at the scene.
Hana, a jewlry store worker at the mall, told KPTV that the “shots never ended.”
“It was just over and over and over,” Hana said. “It was just instant fear. We all just got to the back as fast as we could. The scariest thing was just seeing people running for their lives as fast as they could.”
Ramps of Interstate 205 near the mall were closed in both directions shortly after the shooting.
