Those statistics show Allen’s population is about 19% Asian, 10% Black and 11% Hispanic.Īllen also is connected to another of Texas’ recent mass shootings. The area saw the largest Asian American growth rate of any major U.S. It was deafening.”Īllen, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas and with a population of about 105,000 residents, is among the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s diverse suburbs. I’d never ever heard anything like that in my life. “As soon as I got outside the back of the store, you could hear the shooting,” Gaither said Sunday. Eventually, Gaither and the others ran out a back door. Gaither looked around to see customers and the store manager running to the back of the store. Then she heard one say shots were being fired. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.Īndria Gaither, the assistant manager at the Tommy Hilfiger clothing store, said Sunday she was at the back of the store Saturday afternoon when she saw two young girls trying to hide in a dressing room. Witnesses reported seeing children among the victims. The attack unfolded at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center. “The long term solution here is to address the mental health issue.” “People want a quick solution,” Abbott said. Earlier that day, Abbott said on Fox News that Texas wouldn’t enact gun control now. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings in Texas, and other elected leaders. Some of our students were working in those stores and will be changed forever by this,” Caton said.Ĭaton offered similar sentiments during a Sunday night vigil at the church attended by Republican Gov. John Mark Caton, senior pastor at Cottonwood Creek Church about two miles from the mall, offered prayers during a regular Sunday morning service for victims, first responders and the shoppers and employees who “walked out past things they never should have seen.” The wounded remained hospitalized Sunday, three in critical condition and four in fair condition, the Allen Police Department said in a statement. Authorities have not publicly identified those who were killed. Information about the gunman in Allen emerged as the community mourned the dead and awaited word on the seven people who were wounded. This year has seen an average of about one mass killing per week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

Barely a week before, five people were fatally shot in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked a man to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept, authorities said. The shooting was the latest attack to contribute to the unprecedented pace of mass killings this year in the U.S. Republicans in Congress, he said, “cannot continue to meet this epidemic with a shrug.”

The woman inwhite