Police say many more people would have died in a mass shooting in the US state of Indiana on Sunday night, had it not been for the “heroic” actions of a bystander who stopped the gunman.
The heavily armed suspect killed three people and injured two others at a mall near Indianapolis.
Elishsha Dicken, 22, who was at the mall with his girlfriend, drew his pistol and shot the gunman dead.
The incident has revived the US gun ownership debate.
In the latest attack, a suspect opened fire with a rifle in a food court in the Greenwood Park Mall in the city of Greenwood.
The gunman had two rifles, a handgun and more than 100 bullets, police said.
He fired 24 rounds from one of the rifles before being killed about two minutes after the attack.
Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison said on Monday that Dicken had attacked the gunman almost from the start of the attack.
The police chief said Mr Dicken had displayed “skillful” and “sound” tactics by firing “the gunman with a pistol from a decent distance” despite having had no law enforcement or military training.
Dicken also gestured for other buyers to flee after him “as he attacked and approached the suspect,” the police chief said. He fired 10 shots.
Dicken – who legitimately carried a concealed gun – was first handcuffed and questioned by police before his version of the events was confirmed by CCTV footage.
“Many more people would have died last night had it not been for a responsible armed civilian who acted very quickly within the first two minutes of the shooting,” Ison said.
“I will say his actions were nothing short of heroic,” the police chief added.
The attacker was identified as a 20-year-old local resident who had recently been evicted and lost his job in a warehouse.
Two of the three killed were a man and a woman, and the third was a 30-year-old man. A 22-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl were injured.
Gun rights advocates held the case as an example of why gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is important.
In a tweet Monday morning, the National Rifle Association gun lobby said, “We’ll say it again: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
But such outcomes are uncommon. According to an FBI report in May, only two of 61 such attacks ended last year when armed bystanders attacked the active gunman.
A string of recent mass shootings — including at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and at a parade in Highland, Illinois — have reignited the debate in America over gun laws.
