Five people were injured on Saturday after a man drove his pickup truck through the glass doors of a J.C. Penney in a mall in Killeen, Texas, and continued to drive through the building before he was shot and killed by the police, the authorities said.
At about 5 p.m., the driver, whose identity was not released, was in a black pickup truck on a highway when officers tried to stop him for possible drunken driving, said Sgt. Bryan Washko with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Instead of stopping, the driver drove to the Killeen Mall and smashed his car through the doors of the J.C. Penney, Sergeant Washko said.
The man drove through the mall and hit multiple people, five of whom had injuries that were minor to severe, Sergeant Washko said.
The authorities described a chaotic scene. After the driver breached the glass doors, he continued driving for “several hundred yards,” running over people who were shopping on the weekend before Christmas, Sergeant Washko said. The police followed the driver through the mall on foot before shooting him, he added.
The driver hit multiple people, five of whom had injuries that were minor to severe. Those injured ranged from 6 to 75 years old, Sergeant Washko said.
“Not a good day here in Killeen, Texas,” Sergeant Washko said but added that “it could have been so much worse. This mall is pretty busy this time of year.”
The Saturday before Christmas, nicknamed Super Saturday, was expected to be the second-busiest shopping day of this holiday season, according to Sensormatic Solutions.
The episode in Killeen, a city of about 160,000 people 70 miles north of Austin, was originally reported as a shooting, but only the driver was shot, Seargeant Washko said.
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