As Oregon reeled from Tuesday's pre-Christmas shootings at the Clackamas Town Center shopping mall, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said the body count in the rampage could have been higher.
Early today, Roberts told NBC's "Today" show that the as-yet-unidentified masked gunman had "a mission set forth to take the lives of people in that mall."
"A variety of things" helped reduce the loss of lives, he said, including the gunman's weapon jamming. The gunman shot and killed two people, seriously wounded a 15-year-old girl and then took his own life.
The wounded teenage girl, Kristina Shevchenko, is in serious condition, a hospital official said today.
Police will release the names of all the victims and the shooter at a news conference at noon Chicago time today.
Shevchenko's name was released by the Oregon Health & Science University Hospital on authorization of her family.
"The family is doing OK," Shevchenko's brother, Yevgeniy, said. He said his sister was 15 years old and declined further comment.
In a Facebook posting Tuesday night, Yevgeniy Shevchenko said: "As of now she is stable and sleeping. the bullet went through bruising her lung, it missed any vital organs and it missed her ribs. she will need 2 more operations. we appreciate any and all support including your prayers! thank you."
"It really was a killing of total strangers, to my knowledge at this point and time. He was really trying to kill as many people as possible," Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts told ABC's "Good Morning America."People at the mall were heroic in helping get shoppers out of the building, including emergency room nurses who rendered aid, Roberts said.
Employees at the mall with 2,000 employees were trained to run and hide, lock down and evacuate. Since previous mass shootings, the first arriving officers were trained to form teams and go inside instead of waiting for SWAT.
"This could have been much, much worse," Roberts said.
The first 911 call came at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday. The first officers arrived a minute later. By 3:51 p.m., all the victims and the gunman and rifle and been found. Four SWAT teams spent hours clearing the 1.4 million square-foot mall, leaving shoppers and workers to hide in fear.
The mall Santa, Brance Wilson, was waiting for the next child's Christmas wish when shots rang out, causing the mall to erupt into chaos.
About to invite a child to hop onto his lap, Wilson instead dove for the floor and kept his head down as he heard shots being fired upstairs in the mall.
"I heard two shots and got out of the chair. I thought a red suit was a pretty good target," said Wilson, 68. Families waiting for Santa scattered. More shots followed, and Wilson crept away for better cover.
Witnesses said the gunman fired several times near the mall food court until the rifle jammed and he dropped a magazine onto the floor, then ran into the Macy's store.
Witnesses heard the gunman saying, "I am the shooter," as he fired rounds from a semi-automatic rifle inside the Clackamas Town Center, a popular suburban mall several miles from downtown Portland.
Some were close enough to the shooter to feel the percussion of his gun.
Police rapid-response teams came into the mall with guns drawn, telling everyone to leave. Shoppers and mall employees who were hiding stayed in touch with loved ones with cellphones and texting.
Kayla Sprint, 18, was interviewing for a job at a clothing store when she heard shots.
"We heard people running back here screaming, yelling '911,'" she told The Associated Press.
Sprint barricaded herself in the store's back room until the coast was clear.
Jason DeCosta, a manager of a window-tinting company that has a display on the mall's ground floor, said when he arrived to relieve his co-worker, he heard shots ring out upstairs.
DeCosta ran up an escalator, past people who had dropped for cover and glass littering the floor.
Oregon mall shooting toll could have been worse: official
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Oregon mall shooting toll could have been worse: official
