SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Twin Falls, Idaho: A shooting at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in southern Idaho in the US has left multiple people dead and others injured, police say.
The shooter is among the dead, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said in a news conference. Police are still trying to determine the shooter’s identity and motive.
“We believe the threat to the community is over,” Hicks said, adding that he did not yet know exactly how many were killed or wounded, and officials were still in the process of notifying next of kin. “It was a very chaotic scene.”
At least three people were killed and two people injured, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed officials.
Before the news conference, Twin Falls County Commissioner Brent Reinke said Sheriff Jack Johnson had told him five people were hurt in the shooting on Saturday afternoon (US time).
Lane Koehn, 34, said he was at a stoplight near the In-N-Out restaurant when he saw a person with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru. A man with a pistol started firing at the shooter.
He then saw someone in an In-N-Out uniform drag a person, also uniformed, bleeding from a gunshot wound in her chest across the car park. The employee, Koehn and the man with the pistol stayed until paramedics arrived for her.
“She was pretty bad off, but I don’t know. I hope she made it,” Koehn said.
Koehn said he was told by the police to evacuate because the shooting was still active.
He also said the shooter fired at least three or four rounds, and it was not clear whether or not anyone in particular was targeted.
Shooter dressed in black
Video taken by a driver from across the street captured a shooter, who appeared to be dressed in black, walking up to a white car carrying a long rifle, opening the driver-side door and the boot. The person then walked to the boot and reached inside. At that point, the driver who shot the video left quickly, fearing that the man might be getting more weapons.
Twin Falls resident Haley Dodaro, 43, and her mother went to In-N-Out for lunch on Saturday afternoon. While waiting in the drive-thru line, they saw people running across the road and workers bolting out of the restaurant. At first, Dodaro thought there might have been a fire, but then a man directing traffic in a reflective vest said there was a shooter.
“So that’s when we knew there was a shooting. People were running out, crying and screaming. It was very scary,” Dodaro said in a text message to the Associated Press.
The shooting took place near a busy shopping area, and hundreds of people were there at the time, Hicks said. Police were interviewing witnesses and asked anyone with information to contact authorities.
St Luke’s Magic Valley spokesperson Taylor Marschner said in a statement that the medical centre was “working closely with law enforcement and emergency responders as they manage the situation”.
Twin Falls, a city of about 56,000 people, is about 205 kilometres south-east of Boise and about 120 kilometres north of the Nevada border.
