UPDATE: Allen Police issued a statement on May 13 saying they had determined the reports in this story were not credible, CBS News reported. The statement said:
“Allen Police Department wants to inform the public of discrepancies with statements made by a witness to several media outlets. Following the shooting at Allen Premium Outlets, Mr. Steven Spainhouer of McKinney, Texas gave multiple public accounts of his actions. Inconsistencies between these public accounts and investigative facts led Allen Police Department to conduct a follow-up interview. During this interview, detectives determined that Mr. Spainhouer is not a credible incident witness.”
Spainhouer stood by his statements in a Facebook post on Saturday, saying he was “hurt and disappointed” by the police department’s statement.
Original report:
A father who raced to the Texas mall where a gunman on Saturday murdered eight people and injured seven others is sharing his heart-rending account of what he saw, CBS Texas reports.
The shooter, whose name has not been released, opened fire around 3:30 p.m. Saturday at the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas, a northeast Dallas suburb.
Steven Spainhouer said he got a call from his son, who works at the mall’s H&M store, which is near where the shooter was positioned. The worried dad raced to the shopping center and arrived before emergency responders.
Spainhouer said he initially tried to help some of the victims and administer first aid.
“The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face,” Spainhouer told CBS News.
The Good Samaritan then located a child who was hidden under his mother, who was dead.
“When I rolled the mother over, he came out and I asked him ‘are you OK’ and he said, ‘my mom is hurt, my mom is hurt,’” Spainhouer told CBS News. “So rather than traumatize him anymore, I pulled him around the corner sat him down. He was covered from head to toe like somebody had poured blood on him.”
Spainhouer said what he saw at the mall will forever be seared into his memory.
“I never imagined in 100 years I would be thrust into the position of being the first responder on the site to take care of people,” Spainhouer told CBS News. “No one can see what they saw today and not be affected by it. It’s not a situation that I would wish upon anybody. It’s just unfathomable to see the carnage.”
A police officer who was already at the mall on an unrelated matter heard the gunshots and ran toward the scene, where the officer shot and killed the gunman, who appeared to have been wearing tactical gear.
Authorities have not publicly identified the gunman, but law enforcement does know who he is and searched a home in Dallas on Saturday evening reportedly belonging to his parents. Neighbors told WFAA-TV that they believed the gunman, reportedly in his 30s, had long lived with his parents, although his vehicle had not been around the neighborhood in recent weeks.
Witnesses have described the chaos and terror that surged through the mall as the shooting unfolded.
“I turned around and I saw two ladies rushing towards me, and then one was like ‘Someone’s shooting! Someone’s shooting!’” Kingsley Ezeh told CNN.
The names and ages of the victims have also not been released, but one medical provider has said it was treating people between the ages of 5 and 61, according to the Dallas Morning News. Three surviving victims were in critical condition and underwent surgery on Saturday night, while four others were stable.
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[Feature Photo: People raise their hands as they leave a shopping center following reports of a shooting, Saturday, May 6, 2023, in Allen, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)]
