3 dead in shooting inside Colorado Walmart, shooter still on loose
Three people were shot to death inside a Walmart in Colorado on Wednesday night, police said.
Two men and a woman died from wounds suffered in the attack that unfolded at about 6:30 p.m. local time in the Denver suburb of Thornton, authorities said.
All three victims were shot near the front of the store, cops said. The two male victims were pronounced dead at the scene, before the woman died at a hospital.
“Employees used shopping carts to shield themselves in parking lot from shooter!” tweeted KDVR Gregory Nieto.
The shooter — a man wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and a maroon shirt — fled and was not immediately caught, officials said.
He was spotted driving away in a red Mitsubishi Mirage four-door hatchback, police said.
“This is a very heinous act,” Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila said. “We don’t know exactly what the motive of the person was, but it was certainly a terrible act.”
Shots rang out with no warning, witnesses said.
“The employees started screaming. Customers were screaming,” said Aaron Stephens, 44, who in the self-checkout line when he heard one shot and then two bursts of gunfire.
“They were running like crazy, and I ran out too because I didn’t want to get killed.”
Another witness, Guadalupe Perez, heard “this popping noise” without immediately knowing those were gunshots.
“We were renting movies and we just heard this popping noise,” Perez told KCNC-TV.
“The Walmart girl said, ‘The balloons are popping.’ And I turn around and I just see all the people walking, falling down because they were really scared. I just told them ‘What’s going on?’ and they were like ‘They’re shooting! They’re shooting!’ ”
This Walmart in Thornton is about 23 miles from Columbine High School in Littleton, where 12 students and a teacher were slaughtered by two other students in 1999.
It’s 18 miles from the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, where 12 people were killed in a 2012 shooting.
With Post Wires and additional reporting by David K. Li