Deaths in Finland mall shooting

Deaths in Finland mall shooting

Police said the attacker, identified as Ibrahim Shkupolli, is still on the run Four people have been killed as a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall in Finland's second largest city, Espoo, the police have said. Witnesses said a man dressed in black had started shooting randomly inside the Sello mall on Thursday morning. "I can confirm that four people are dead," Jyrkky Kallio, the local police chief, said. "But we do not know yet whether there are other casualties and how many there are." A witness said an employee was seen lying on the floor covered in blood, Finland's national broadcaster YLE reported. Many ambulances were called to the scene. Police identified the shooter as 43-year-old Ibrahim Shkupolli. The shooter's nationality is unclear. Motives unclear Lisa Karvinen, a journalist at YLE, said the police have not released any details about possible motives for the shooting. "Police is searching for him ... They have searched some local trains which have passed the station [near the mall]", she told Al Jazeera. The director of the shopping centre said the mall had been evacuated and public transport services in the area were rerouted. The shooting is the country's third multiple shooting incident in as many years. In September 2008, a lone gunman killed nine fellow students and a teacher at a vocational college before shooting himself in the western town of Kauhajoki. In November 2007, an 18-year-old student fatally shot eight people and himself at a high school in southern Finland. Finland, a nation of 5.3 million, has 1.6 million firearms in private hands and ranks among the top five nations in the world in civilian gun ownership.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies