Breaking news about a Colorado Walmart shooting has just become available. Multiple people were shot today inside a Walmart in a Denver suburb, local police said. Police in Thornton, Colorado, did not release any information on the number of victims and it was not clear if anyone had been taken into custody, taken his own life or been killed by officers.
"We've got multiple parties down, we're still trying to ascertain what their conditions are," said Officer Victor Avila of the Thornton Police Department. An hour after the incident, the nature of the incident or status of the threat remained unclear, he said.Police in Thornton, Colorado, said two men had died and one woman had been taken to hospital after the shooting. It was not clear if an assailant had been taken into custody. Thornton is about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Denver."At this time this is NOT an active shooter. Active crime scene. We will update as info becomes available," the police department said in a tweet.“I was by customer service and I started to hear pops, loud pops, and they kept going, pop pop pop, probably six pops,” a Walmart employee told KDVR, Fox’s Denver affiliate. “Everyone got down. Everyone started screaming. It was crazy.”"Woman just ran up to me and said her son is in Walmart. Says he told her he heard 30 shots, helped save an elderly woman," Steve Staeger tweeted."OMG! My son Nathan just called me shooting at Thornton Walmart just now..many shots fired!!" Junie Toni Manz wrote on Facebook."Angela Martinez-Garcia and her son Johnny and her mom Meka were in the store during shooting and had to run out...They are shaken up."https://twitter.com/CBS4Dom/status/925899096291987457Nick Metz, the police chief in nearby Aurora, tweeted that his department’s SWAT team would “assist as needed.”Local NBC affiliate 9NEWS reported that a woman whose son was in Walmart had told her that he had heard about 30 gunshots and was still inside.We will continue to follow this Colorado Walmart shooting as it happens to bring you the latest news on the matter as it happens and when local authorities produce more information.