Officer's round disabled Allen shooter's rifle magazine: New details from police investigation
ALLEN — CBS News Texas has new information from the Allen Police Department about its investigation into the outlet mall shooting that reveals for the first time the massive amount of manpower that responded to the scene.
The investigation uncovered architectural design challenges that inhibited the emergency response and found that one of the rifle rounds fired by an officer missed the shooter but still may have saved lives.
According to its internal investigation, Allen Police say more than 400 first responders were on the scene last May, including six area SWAT teams.
In all, 17 different agencies contributed to the response.
An Allen officer, who was fortunately at the mall when the shooting began, fired a total of 14 rounds when he encountered the shooter and eventually killed him.
The suspect was only able to fire once at the officer because one of the officer's rounds hit the shooter's rifle magazine and disabled it.
The investigation also found that first responders faced serious challenges getting into the Allen Premium Outlets because of its horseshoe design.
Panicked customers were desperate to get out while officers were racing to get in.
The police department learned from the mass shooting that social media can be useful, but it can also be a distraction with so many people posting about gunfire coming from different areas around the mall at a time when authorities were still unaware they were dealing with a lone gunman.