Tulsan Working In Portland Mall During Shooting Talks About Experience

A transplant from Tulsa was working in an Oregon mall Tuesday night, when a man opened fire in the food court.

She said the shooting triggered her basic survival instincts.

"The windows just shattered," said Amber Solomon.

Solomon was five stores down, but said the first shot sounded like it was right on top of her.

The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a stolen rifle from someone he knew, authorities said Wednesday.

Jacob Tyler Roberts had armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at a Portland mall on Tuesday, said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.

"It just sounded like something came crashing down," Solomon said. "Terrifying, like you just don't know, like, where he's at, ‘cause it echoes throughout the entire mall. You don't know where he's at and he could've been just right in front of us."

Solomon pushed her fear aside and didn't let panic get the best of her.

"We all looked at each other and then I was like, 'Get outta the store!' Let's get everyone to the back of the store. We got all the customers to the back of the store and out our emergency back exit," Solomon said.

Calm under pressure, she led some of the 10,000 Christmas shoppers packed inside the mall to safety.

"No one prepares you for something like this. We have emergency plans for fires or maybe terrorist threats, but nothing like this," Solomon said.