Six killed, others wounded in Netherlands mall shoot-out
Six people have been killed in the Netherlands after a gunman opened fire at a busy shopping centre, and wounded at least 11 others before taking his own life.
The killings took place at in the town of Alphen aan den Rijn, about 25km (15 miles) south-west of Amsterdam.
The mayor of the town said the man opened fire with an automatic weapon and then shot himself.
The gunman came from the town, was known to police and "almost certainly operated alone", said a prosecutor.
Kitty Nooy, from The Hague prosecutor's office, identified the man as 24-year-old Tristan van der Vlis, a member of a shooting club who had a permit to carry five weapons.
She said he was native Dutchman from Alphen who had had previous run-ins with the law, including an illegal weapons possession charge that was dropped.
Mayor Bas Eenhoorn called the incident "unprecedented" for the town of about 70,000 people.
He said four of the injured were in a critical condition and five had serious wounds.
Children were among the casualties, but officials say they are not prepared to say whether they were among the dead or the injured due to privacy reasons.
"It's hardly credible that our town could experience such slaughter, and on a day as beautiful as this," he said.
The BBC reports that most witnesses said the shooting lasted between 10 and 20 minutes.
A shopkeeper in the Ridderhof centre said the gunman appeared to be shooting people at random.
After the shooting, Mayor Eenhoorn ordered the evacuations of three other shopping centre in the town.
He did not give a reason for the decision, but Radio Netherlands reported that the note in the attacker's car had said he had planted explosives at the other malls.
