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Three people have been killed in a shooting at Columbia Mall in Howard County, Md., police confirmed. 

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The suspect was among those found dead. His body was located near a gun and ammunition, police said. 

Three witnesses described the gun as a shotgun, though police have not yet confirmed the weapon used.

Two other people have been transported to hospitals with injuries that were not directly related to the shooting, though they may have been related to the chaotic scene that followed.

The scene is now secure, though police are asking shoppers who took shelter in the mall to wait for police to evacuate them.

No other information has been released about the other victims.

Eyewitnesses described a nightmarish scene. One woman said she heard what sounded like “something being dropped” and then realized the sound was gunshots.

“They just kept shooting and it didn’t stop,” she said.

She rescued one child and then ran back to her job, at a children’s hair salon, to secure the others.

“I work in Cartoon Cuts; I was downstairs getting a tea for my boss,” she said. “And all of a sudden I heard … it sounded like someone dropped something. And all of a sudden I see people fall, three people fall to the ground. And all I see is people going down to the floor and running.”

“I just saw everybody run, so I ran.”

Another eyewitness, a young woman, said: “We just heard gunshots, and then this lady came into the store and said there’s a guy with a gun. … Me and my friend just ran in the back room.”

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“We were crying and we were just scared out of our minds, because our thought was that we were going to get shot.”

The initial call that shots had been fired at the mall came in at about 11:15 a.m., Howard County police said. Police then entered the mall.

News4 spoke to one man who said he was in phone contact with his daughter, who was taking shelter in a Bank of America inside the mall, along with dozens of others. She described a chaotic scene as shoppers at the mall were told to evacuate or shelter.

“People were panicking,” the man said.

A statement from the mall said only that “Mall is closed. Believe that the situation may be over, but the mall is closed.”

The mall is popular with shoppers throughout a large area of suburban Washington, D.C.

More information: Crime

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