An off-duty soldier who was inside the El Paso shopping centre during a fatal mass shooting has recounted how a child warned shoppers minutes before he scooped unattended minors away from the attacker.
Twenty people were killed and 26 others seriously injured in the shooting in the Texas border town.
Army specialist Glendon Oakley was at a sports store in the Cielo Vista Mall when a "little kid" ran in warning shoppers and retail workers there was an active shooter at the nearby Walmart, Mr Oakley told local media outlets.
"A little kid ran in there telling us 'there's an active shooter in Walmart', but we didn't pay it no attention because for one it's a just little kid and for two we're at the mall and not at Walmart," he told CNN.
Mr Oakley said about five minutes later he had walked to another store in the centre when he heard gunshots and saw people start running and screaming.
His first thought was to follow another group of shoppers to the car park so he could protect them.
"I'm in the military so when I hear gunshots we're trained to think fast. Grab your weapon, think fast, take cover, do anything you can," he said.
"But I see a whole bunch of kids just running around without their parents. So … the only thing I think of is just to pick up as many kids as possible."
Mr Oakley said he saw about 13 children without adults, but he was only able to pick up three. He said another man also took three children away to safety.
"There was maybe a total of 13 kids running around but I can only get three, and I think he got about three as well," he said.
"I was just focused on the kids I wasn't really worried about myself. I put my head down and just ran as fast as I could.
"And once I saw a whole bunch of cops I dropped [the kids] and I told them to go."
Mr Oakley said when he saw police officers, he worried they might shoot at him thinking he may have been the active shooter.
"So I pulled out my phone in case they were going to shoot me … and started recording while I was running," he said.
"They were telling me 'hands up, hands up'."
He said he showed officers his licence to carry and he was allowed to leave.
"I wasn't too worried about myself I was just trying to get those kids out of there," he said.
"I was just thinking about if I had a child and if I wasn't around, how I would want another man to act if they saw my child just running around?"
Sergeant Robert Gomez said most of the El Paso attack 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, when the attack happened.
A suspect is in custody over the shooting, with police alleging the 21-year-old man used a rifle in the attack. He was arrested away from the scene of the shooting without police firing a shot.
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".
