Mall shooting in Washington state claims 5th victim

Xinhua News Agency

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A male victim who sustained life-threatening injuries in a mall shooting in Washington state passed away on Saturday morning.

Sergeant Mark Francis, a public information officer with Washington State Patrol, tweeted a message confirming the 5th fatality of the previous night's incident at Cascade Mall in Burlington.

A lone gunman shot and killed four women instantly at the makeup department of Macy's department store, one of about 50 vendors at the shopping mall about 65 miles, or 105 kilometers, north of Seattle, the biggest city in the U.S. Pacific Northwest state.

While the suspect, described by Francis as a "Hispanic male wearing grey" the night before, is still at large, security camera images were released by a multiple agency response team of Skagit county, where Burlington is located, to call for public help to identify the shooting.

The gunman, probably in his late teens or early 20s, appeared in an image before 7:00 p.m. local time to walk into the mall without a weapon, and showed up in another image holding a rifle. He was last seen on Friday night walking out from the enclosed mall toward the nearby Interstate 5 highway.

(APD)