A man entered a Safeway grocery store in Bend, Oregon, Sunday evening and fatally shot two people, authorities said.
The man believed to be the shooter was found dead inside, Bend Police said in a statement.
Police said they responded to multiple 911 calls at the Forum Shopping Center in the central Oregon city at about 7:04 p.m.
At a Sunday night news conference, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the gunman came from a residential area behind the shopping center and moved through the parking lot shooting rounds from an AR-15 style rifle. The shooter then entered the Safeway and shot one person inside the entrance and continued firing inside the store, fatally shooting another person.
Police found the suspected gunman deceased inside the Safeway. Krantz said police didn’t fire any shots.
Krantz said police recovered an AR-15 rifle and a shotgun “in close proximity” to the shooter.
Krantz didn’t identify the gunman or the victims and said there was no evidence of additional shooters, as early social media posts indicated there might have been.
“This will take along time to collect evidence,” Krantz said. “We know this is a frightening thing for our community.”
He said officers heard shots being fired when they got there.
Bend is a city of about 97,000 approximately 160 miles southeast of Portland, Oregon.
Heather Thompson, who lives nearby, told CBS Bend affiliate KBNZ-TV she heard 5-8 shots and she thought it was backfire. “And then less than a minute later there were 10-20 shots and then another 10-20 shots. I told my dad to get away from the window and there were people running out of Safeway,” she said. The police arrived “in a matter of, like, 5 seconds.”
Molly Taroli, 40, told The Bulletin newspaper she was with her husband in the Safeway shopping for dinner when the shooter went through the store “spraying shots.”
Taroli told the newspaper she took her own handgun from her purse. Employees, Taroli said, were yelling “go, go, go!” as they tried to help people flee.
Josh Caba, another shopper in the store, told KTVZ he was with his four children when he heard multiple shots.
“I immediately turned to my children and said, ‘Run!’ People were screaming,” Caba told the station. “It was a horrifying experience.” (CBS)