The gunman behind the shooting, 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, was shot dead at the mall by an officer responding to an unrelated matter. Garcia killed eight people and injured seven others before he was killed around 3:40 p.m. that day. The youngest victim who died was 3 years old.
Spainhouer’s son was working at the mall’s H&M store when the shooting erupted. Spainhouer told news outlets including WFAA that he got a call from his son at 3:36 p.m. saying he and others had locked themselves in the breakroom at H&M and that he heard gunshots. The father claims he rushed to the mall and saw people running away as he approached. He said the parking lot seemed empty when he got there so he made his way toward the H&M.
Spainhouer told WFAA that he did chest compressions on one victim who later died. He also recalled removing a boy from under his dead mother. Perhaps the most memorable thing he told the media was that he found a girl crouched in the bushes who appeared to be covering her head, but when he turned her over “she had no face.”“I am hurt and disappointed." – Steven Spainhouer
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If you ask the Allen Police Department, none of that is true.
In a May 12 press release, the police department said it wanted to inform the public of discrepancies in some of the witness statements to media outlets. “Following the shooting at Allen Premium Outlets, Mr. Steven Spainhouer of McKinney, Texas, gave multiple public accounts of his actions,” the department said in the press release. “Inconsistencies between these public accounts and investigative facts led Allen Police Department to conduct a follow-up interview. During this interview, detectives determined that Mr. Spainhouer is not a credible incident witness.”
The press release said Spainhouer arrived between 3:44 and 3:52 p.m. It also said that he was not the first on the scene and was not on the property while there was still gunfire. The department also said Spainhouer didn’t perform CPR or remove a boy from under his dead mother. While in some interviews Spainhouer said he did chest compressions, he claimed in social media posts that he specifically performed CPR on at least one victim.
“As inaccurate reports can be prevalent in such situations, it is essential to confirm information before sharing it,” the press release said. “Please take note of this to prevent the unintentional spreading of misinformation.”"... Detectives determined that Mr. Spainhouer is not a credible incident witness.” – Allen Police Department
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Spainhouer has put out his own statement in response. “I am hurt and disappointed,” he wrote in a May 13 social media post. He said he never claimed to hear gunshots at the mall and that there’s no way for him to know if police were on the scene when he got there. However, he did say that the police weren’t at the H&M store, where most of the victims were located.
“I know what I did and did not do while waiting on the Allen police and fire departments,” he said. “I know that there were individuals who were deceased and could not be treated with CPR. I know because I was there.”
He now says he moved only one of the victims, the dead woman who was allegedly covering her son. “A small child pulled himself from under a victim and I assisted him to a safe space away from the area,” he said.
Additionally, he said the timeline the police offered for when he arrived at the mall would have been only between eight and 16 minutes after he got the call from his son. He claimed he didn’t see a police car or ambulance on the scene for another five to six minutes. This would have been over 20 minutes after the shooting started, according to Spainhouer.
“Instead of targeting me on what I did or didn’t do, perhaps the Allen Police can explain why it took 20 minutes to get to the front of the H&M store, where there were injured victims, if they were already on site, before I got there,” Spainhouer said in his social media post.
In another post early Monday morning, Spainhouer said his son had been interviewed by Allen police. Spainhouer said his son told him that the police asked why he dropped out of college and about what medications he might be on. His son told police that he graduated from the University of North Texas, but refused to tell them what medications he might be taking. “I am simply at a loss for words. Freddie was a hero in my eyes, and then gets questioned by the Allen Police,” Spainhouer wrote on Facebook Monday. “We have had happier days.”
The Allen police have not yet responded to Spainhouer’s recent statements contradicting theirs.
