Remembering Allen: Monday marks 1 year since Neo-Nazi opened fire at outlet mall, killing 8
Monday marks one year since a gunman fueled by his Neo-Nazi beliefs killed eight people and wounded seven others in an attack at the Allen Premium Outlets mall.
Audio from 911 calls and body-camera video from a police officer at the scene when the shooting started painted a detailed picture of terror at the North Texas mall. A father watched his daughters die. A boy saw his family killed. For the families of the eight people who died that day and the seven others wounded, the horror of May 6 didn’t end when the gunman was killed.
The victims
Daniela Mendoza, an 11-year-old in fourth grade, and Sofia Mendoza, an 8-year-old in second grade, were killed. Their mother was shot but survived. Their father was the man who called 911, begging for help.
William Cho, 6, lost his mother, Cindy Cho, father Kyu Song Cho and brother James Cho, a 3-year-old boy in preschool who loved elephants.
Christian LaCour, a 20-year-old security guard, evacuated one person from the mall. When he went back in to help more to safety, he was shot and killed.
Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26, an engineer who lived in McKinney, was at the mall shopping for a dress for her upcoming birthday with a friend who was injured in the shooting.
Elio Cumana Rivas, 32, was out with friends at the mall when they split up to go their separate ways after they finished shopping. He lived in Dallas after fleeing violence in Venezuela and seeking asylum in the U.S.
The attack
It lasted less than four minutes. An Allen police officer already at the mall jumped into action when he heard the gunshots. That officer found the gunman, 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, exchanged fire with him and killed him.
The shooter was a Neo-Nazi who made posts on a Russian social media site glorifying mass shootings and referring to “kill counts” of mass killers. His account boasted of scouting the mall before the shooting.
On May 6, 2023, Garcia drove to the Allen Premium Outlets and got out of the vehicle and started shooting. Around that time, according to his bodycam video, the Allen police officer was speaking to a mother and children, telling the kids to listen to their mother.
“Make sure y’all be good, OK?” the officer was saying to the children. “And make sure y’all wear your seat belts when Mommy’s driving, OK?”
One of the children asked the officer what kind of weapon he uses. He just chuckled in response before the mother changed the subject back to car safety.
Then the gunshots start.
They’re distant, rapid pops. Everyone pauses. There’s a second where it seems the mother and the officer process what they’re hearing. Around two dozen reverberating pops of “tsh tsh tsh” sounded like something you might almost be able to convince yourself were firecrackers. But then the realization kicks in as the officer starts backing toward his police vehicle and the mother leans down to grab her children by their arms, urging them to hurry as they move to a car.
“One-forty five, I think we’ve got shots fired at the outlet mall,” the officer spat into his radio.
The gunfire stops for a second and the officer leans into the open door of his police vehicle. His movement and his tone of voice are urgent, but they’re steady. Not panicked. It seems like he’s trying to get something out of the vehicle. Not even a moment later he gets a response.
“Three-two, shots fired at the outlet,” a dispatcher acknowledges.
Calls to 911 began flooding in just before 3:40 p.m.
Operators jumped from one call to the next for more than an hour, recordings of the 911 calls obtained by the Star-Telegram showed. After the first couple of calls, they got into a routine of immediately asking two questions when they answered calls: “Are you calling about the shooting at the outlets?” and “Is anybody around you injured?”
If the answers were no, they hung up and moved on to the next caller.
The officer got a rifle from the vehicle and started running when the gunshots started again. He followed the sounds of the shots, then ran into people fleeing. They told him where they thought the shooter was and he headed that way. When he reached the shooter he was alone.
The officer engaged the shooter, firing rounds in his direction. He dodged from cover to cover as the shooter returned fire. When he had a shot, he took it.
For almost an hour after, 911 operators continued fielding calls from people at the mall asking if they were safe, reporting injuries and offering tips to police about the shooter. Callers who had family at the mall pleaded with operators for information on their loved ones.
A year later
One year later, advocacy groups, the city and Medical City Healthcare hospital in Plano are remembering the victims and demanding change.
The city will be holding a remembrance event at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center, according to a news release. There, the Allen High School choir and Allen Philharmonic Orchestra will perform and attendees will be asked to participate in “a time of interfaith reflection.”
City leaders are asking for a citywide moment of silence that will be observed in Allen at 3:36 p.m. on Monday, at the time the shooting started.
The orchestra will perform “In Lumine,” a piece that was “specially commissioned by the community orchestra as a tribute to the eight individuals who lost their lives,” the city said in its release.
Eight soloists, playing the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola and cello, are meant to represent the eight victims, according to the city. The piece is meant to remember the victims “as they lived, in the light of life.”
Medical City Healthcare shared the story of Suneetha Pinnamaneni, a survivor of the attack. Pinnamaneni was taken to the hospital after she was shot. Now she’s volunteering there to help others by meeting with trauma patients.
“I was so scared when the incident happened, but I was realizing how lucky I was to survive,” she said in a video released by the hospital.
Taking action
And eight advocacy groups are working to commemorate the lives of the eight victims killed May 6, 2023, according to a joint news release. Among their list of goals: have Texas officially label the attack a hate crime.
Asian Texans for Justice, Dallas Asian American Historical Society, De Colores Collective, KA:LL Community, South Asian American Voter Empowerment Education Fund, Remembering Black Dallas, Dallas Truth Racial Healing & Transformation, and Stop AAPI Hate are working to get the attack recognized as a hate crime.
“Despite authorities finding that the gunman held Neo-Nazi ideology and targeted a location with a large AAPI population, Texas government leadership has failed to acknowledge the role of racism and refused to pass legislation preventing further gun violence,” the organizations wrote in the joint release.
The organizations are also calling for the Texas Legislature to reintroduce a bill that would raise the legal age of purchasing a long rifle to 21 and invest in community violence intervention.
“We urge Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature to focus their priorities on issues that better serve Texans of color, and keep all Texans safe,” the organizations said in the joint news release. “On this day of remembrance, we honor the lives of those lost in the Allen Mall Shooting and fight for gun control policies that will make Texas safer for all those who call this place home.”
