3 killed in US mall shooting, gunman shot dead

Four people, including a gunman, were killed on Sunday evening (local time) at an Indiana mall after a man opened fire in a food court, media reported citing police.

"In total, four people were killed and two were injured," Jim Ison, Chief of Greenwood Police Department said.

During a news conference on Sunday, Ison said that the emergency call center received calls about the shooting in the food court around 6 pm (local time).

The gunman entered the Greenwood Park Mall with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and began firing in the food court, Ison said.

An armed civilian killed the gunman, Ison added.

"It appears that a good Samaritan that was armed observed the shooting in progress and shot the shooter," he said.

Mayor of Greenwood said in a statement said: "We experienced a mass shooting this evening at the Greenwood Park Mall. The Greenwood Police Department is in control of the scene. I am in direct contact with the command post, and there is no further threat. I would ask the public to please stay away from this area,"

"This tragedy hits at the core of our community," the Mayor said.

"We are sickened by yet another type of incident like this in our country," Indianapolis Assistant Chief of Police Chris Bailey said.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said on Twitter that it was helping the local authorities and urged people to avoid the area.

With increasing incidents of gun violence in the United States, President Joe Biden had said that the US needs to ban assault weapons for the sake of protecting children and families or raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21.

Furthermore, on June 22, a group of US lawmakers reached a much-awaited deal on a bipartisan gun safety bill after recent mass shooting incidents in Uvalde, Buffalo and Texas, that struck a nerve in the country.

The new bill aims to take firearms away from dangerous people and provide billions of dollars in new mental health funding.

The bill does not ban assault-style rifles or significantly expand background-check requirements for gun purchases, but it gives states more resources to take guns away from dangerous individuals.