Families and officials are releasing the names of the eight people killed in a mass shooting at a Texas mall on Saturday.
Two young sisters, Daniela Mendoza and Sofia Mendoza, died in the rampage at the Allen Premium Outlets mall, according to a message to families from Superintendent David Vinson of the Wylie Independent School District. Daniela Mendoza was in fourth grade and Sofia Mendoza was in second grade at Cox Elementary in Sachse, Vinson said.
Principal Krista Wilson described the girls as “rays of sunshine,” according to Vinson. Their mother, one of the seven other people hurt in the shooting, was in critical condition, the superintendent said.
A 3-year-old boy, James Cho, and his parents, Cindy and Kyu, were also killed, John Jun, a co-founder of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Korean American Coalition, confirmed to CBS News. The couple’s older son survived the shooting.
Christian LaCour, 20, was also among the deceased victims, his father confirmed to CBS News. LaCour was working as a security guard at the mall on Saturday.
Aishwarya Thatikonda, 27, was also among the deceased, a family representative confirmed to CBS Texas. She was from India and working at a general contracting business based in Frisco.
“Our community has just been hit, and it hurts,” Allen Mayor-elect Baine Brooks said during a vigil Sunday.
Elio Cumana-Rivas, a 32-year-old from Dallas, was also among those killed, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a Monday afternoon news release.
The gunman, identified by authorities as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, was shot and killed by a police officer who was at the mall in Allen for an unrelated call. Investigators are looking into his history, including possible extremist views. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism says social media posts suggest he was “obsessed with violence” and embraced misogynistic, antisemitic and white supremacist ideologies.
Saturday’s rampage came just over a week after another mass shooting in Texas, when five people, including a 9-year-old boy, were shot and killed in the town of Cleveland. According to authorities in that case, Francisco Oropeza went into a neighbor’s home and opened fire after he was asked to stop shooting his gun late at night while a baby was trying to sleep.
