Twenty people have been killed and 26 others have been seriously injured in a shooting at a shopping centre in the Texas border town of El Paso, which officials say may be a possible hate crime.

Key points: Police say the 21-year-old male suspect used a rifle in the shooting

Police say the 21-year-old male suspect used a rifle in the shooting Officials say 20 people have been killed and another 26 have been seriously injured

Officials say 20 people have been killed and another 26 have been seriously injured Many of the shoppers caught up in the tragedy were buying back-to-school supplies

The suspected gunman was identified as a 21-year-old white male from Allen, Texas.

Police allege the man used a rifle in the attack. He surrendered to police and was arrested away from the scene of the shooting without police firing a shot.

"On a day that would have been a normal day for someone to leisurely go shopping, it turned into one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas," Governor Greg Abbott said at a news conference afterwards.

Sergeant Robert Gomez said most of the El Paso victims were shot at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall.

He said the store was packed with back-to-school shoppers, with anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 customers and about 100 employees inside at the time.

"The scene was a horrific one," Police Chief Allen said, describing many of those hurt in the shooting as having life-threatening injuries.

Multiple law enforcement agencies had raced to the scene — including police, state troopers, Homeland Security agents and border patrol.

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said police responded to the shooting within six minutes.

Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Centre of El Paso, said 13 of the injured were brought to the hospital with injuries, including one who died.

Two of the injured were children who were being transferred to El Paso Children's Hospital, he said.

Eleven other victims were being treated at Del Sol Medical Centre, hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero said, adding the victims' ages ranged from 35 to 82.

Police indicate shooting may have 'nexus to a hate crime'

CCTV images said to be of the gunman have emerged. ( AFP: photo courtesy of KTSM 9 )

CCTV images said to be of the gunman and broadcast on US media show a man in a dark T-shirt wearing ear protectors and carrying a rifle.

US media identified the suspect as Patrick Crusius from Allen, Texas.

While a murder investigation has begun with the help of federal investigators, El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said a manifesto possibly written by the suspect indicated the shooting may have "a nexus to a hate crime".

CNN reported that the FBI has opened a domestic terror investigation into the shooting.

"We are going to aggressively prosecute it both as capital murder but also as a hate crime, which is exactly what it appears to be," Governor Abbott told reporters, adding "I don't want to get ahead of the evidence".

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 37 seconds 37 s A man in handcuffs is led away by police near El Paso Walmart shooting. (Credit: Ayla Pequeño)

Police have also blocked streets near a house associated with the suspect as they investigate.

More than a dozen members of law enforcement arrived at the house in Allen, including agents from the FBI, Texas Department of Public Safety and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

It is the eighth-worst mass shooting in modern US history, after the 1984 shooting in San Ysidro that killed 21 people.

"This is just a tragedy that I'm having a hard time getting my arms around," El Paso Mayor Dee Margo told CNN.

People walk out of a school being used as a reunification centre following the shooting. ( AP: Rudy Gutierrez )

Walmart said in a statement: "We're in shock over the tragic events at Cielo Vista Mall ... We're praying for the victims, the community and our associates, as well as the first responders."

'People were dropping on the floor'

During the shooting shoppers fled for their lives, including Kianna Long, who was at the Walmart with her husband when they heard gunfire.

"People were panicking and running, saying that there was a shooter," Ms Long said.

"They were running close to the floor, people were dropping on the floor."

Police officers raced to the scene of the shooting. ( AFP: Joel Angel Juarez )

Ms Long and her husband sprinted through a stock room at the back of the store before sheltering with other customers in a steel container in a shipping area.

One witness said he saw at least one person inside the store with a fatal head wound, and he saw shoppers in bloodied clothes.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 30 seconds 30 s El Paso Police Chief confirms 20 people killed in Walmart shooting

Other stores at the nearby mall were also locked down as police officers cleared the shopping centre in the east of the city, which lies on the southern US border with Mexico.

Video posted on Twitter showed customers at one department store being evacuated with their hands up.

"Hands in the air!" an officer can be heard shouting in the footage.

Two women watch the emergency response to the shooting. ( Reuters: Jorge Salgado )

Trump, politicians condemn shooting 'as act of cowardice'

US President Donald Trump responded to the shooting on Twitter, saying there reports were "very bad, many killed", before later condemning the violence.

"Today's shooting in El Paso, Texas was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice," he said.

"I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today's hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people."

Governor Abbott called the shooting "a heinous and senseless act of violence" and said the state had deployed a number of law enforcement officers to the city.

Police officers outside the scene of the shooting in El Paso. ( AP: Rudy Gutierrez )

El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in West Texas across the border from Juarez, Mexico.

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Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among the dead and six were injured.

League of United Latin American Citizens president Domingo Garcia said that "unfortunately what we saw here was another massacre by again somebody using racial hatred as a basis to kill people of Mexican-American descent, and we need to stand up and fight against it," he said.

Mr Garcia also called on US politicians — including Mr Trump — to halt anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Residents donate blood for 22nd mass shooting in 2019

Two girls comfort each other during a vigil for victims of the shooting. ( AP: John Locher )

Residents were volunteering to give blood to the injured, while police and military members were trying to help people who were looking for missing loved ones.

"It's chaos right now," said Austin Johnson, an Army medic at nearby Fort Bliss, who volunteered to help at the shopping centre and later at the school that was serving as a reunification centre.

Mass shootings are common in the United States.



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Last Sunday, a teenage gunman opened fire with an assault-style rifle on the crowd at a food festival in Northern California, killing three people before fatally shooting himself.

Hours after the El Paso shooting took place, at least nine people were killed and at least 16 injured in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday morning (local time).

This made the El Paso shooting the 21st mass killing in the United States in 2019, according to the AP/USATODAY/Northeastern University mass murder database that tracks all US homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed — not including the offender — over a short period of time regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive.

The shooting in Dayton has become the 22nd mass killing in the US this year.

The first 20 mass killings in the US in 2019 claimed 96 lives.

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