Witnesses about the shooting in El Paso: “I was so worried about all those kids”

The shooting at a Walmart mall in El Paso, a city in Texas on the border with Mexico, killed 20 people. Another 26 were injured. Witnesses are now reporting the scariest moment of their lives.

Ex-military Glendon Oakley, who was in the mall’s Footlocker when all hell broke loose, went into rescue mode. At first, he didn’t realize there was a real shooting going on. “A young child came in screaming that there was a gunman at the Walmart,” said Glen to CNN. Nobody believed it, and Glen kept shopping. Until suddenly he heard the rain of the bullet himself.

He declares that he pulled out his legally authorized weapon and started to spit. But on the way to the mall, he saw several children. Without their parents. Scared and alone. “There really were a lot of kids alone,” he says. And so he knew what to do. He tried to pick up as many kids as he could. He finally got three of them out, other children were so anxious that they wriggled out of his grasp again. “I was so worried about those kids, man.”

On the way, Glen saw that another man was doing the same thing he was doing. “I think he got three out, too,” he says. “When we were outside, one of the officers thought I might be the shooter. And so I showed my evidence of weaponry. I was just trying to get those kids out.”

Kianna Long was with her husband Kendall at the Walmart. “Everyone started to panic, screaming that there was a shooter,” says Kianna to Reuters. “Some let themselves fall to the ground, others began to run to the ground as low as possible.” Her husband Kendall adds that it was pure chaos. “The shooter was clearly out for blood. As we walked, we heard the shots rising. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop… It was like he started shooting faster because people were running away.”

Witnesses about the shooting in El Paso: “I was so worried about all those kids”
©Twitter/Ivan

The couple eventually got out safely. The two hid with others in storage containers until help came.

Leslie, A associate of Walmart’s, was helping customers with the self-scanning mass when they suddenly heard loud bangs. “At first I thought they were big boxes that fell or were thrown hard on the ground,” she tells KTSM. “But then the sounds came closer and closer.”

“I looked at my colleague, she looked at me. In shock and terrified.” And then Leslie came into action. “I gathered all the people I could. I also found a little girl who had lost her mom and dad and grabbed her too. I just tried to get as many people together as I could,” she says. The Texan was eventually able to bring a whole group of people to safety via an emergency exit.

Witnesses about the shooting in El Paso: “I was so worried about all those kids”
©AP – Edie Hallberg

Edie Hallberg lost her 87-year-old mother Angie at the Walmart in the chaos. She tells Telemundo during an interview that all she wants to do is find her mother. “Where is she? I need to find her. I need to know if she’s alive.”

Source
CNN, KTSM, NBC News
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