UPDATE at 12:40 PM Pacific Time:
Sgt. Robert Gomez of the El Paso Police Department is now talking to the media at a press conference regarding the shooting at a mall in the southern Texas city of 680,000. Gomez said there are multiple victims from the shooting but did not have any numbers or know their specific status. Gomez says the EPPD has one person in custody. Initial reports had said there were multiple shooters.
UPDATE at 2:35 PM Pacific Time:
Sgt. Robert Gomez of the El Paso Police Department has given an update. Still no numbers on the wounded and dead although it’s been confirmed by a spokesman at the city’s only major trauma hospital that one of 13 people brought there for treatment has died, but 12 others are alive. Two children have been transferred to El Paso Children’s Hospital. Their status is unknown. The suspect in custody has been identified. He’s white, and 21 years old. Authorities, including the FBI, are scrutinizing what they believe are his writings on social media, including a so-called “manifesto” that has not been verified yet as authentic.
Local reports have suggested that there were multiple victims, with videos shared on social media showing evacuations underway at stores in the mall. The police advised the public to stay away from the mall, which is near Interstate 10 and on El Paso’s east side.
Police got reports of multiple shooters and were "conducting (a) search of a very large area," they tweeted just after 2 p.m. ET.
At least three businesses are on lockdown in the area, about three miles south of El Paso International Airport.
Three Walmart employees took refuge at a nearby Landry's Seafood house, restaurant manager Oscar Collazo told CNN. The women appeared "shook up" but not injured. [...]
"We never thought it would be so close to us this time," Collazo said. "You see on the news all the time, but you don't think it could happen here until it does."