Texas mall shooting: Suspect identified by US media as 33-year-old man

The man who killed eight people including children at a Dallas shopping mall has been identified, US media report.

Police searched a nearby hotel where Mauricio Garcia, 33, was staying as well as a home in the city, reports say, quoting investigators.

The suspect was shot dead by a police officer who was attending a different call in the area on Saturday.

At least three injured victims remained in critical condition on Sunday.

The Associated Press news agency and other US media outlets said Garcia's identify had been confirmed by several law enforcement officials speaking anonymously about the ongoing investigation.

Police have not officially confirmed the suspect's name or details of the victims.

AP added that "multiple weapons" were found at the scene after he was killed, including a handgun and an AR-15 style rifle.

President Joe Biden called for a ban on such assault rifles earlier on Sunday, lamenting what he called "the latest act of gun violence to devastate our nation".

Confirming that children had been killed in the attack, the president said that "too many families have empty chairs at their dinner tables" - and called once again on his political opponents in the Republican party to support tougher gun controls.

The shooting began without warning at the Allen Premium Outlets mall north of Dallas on Saturday. Footage seemed to show the suspect stepping out of his vehicle in the car park, and opening fire on people walking nearby without warning.

One woman working in the mall said the first she knew about the attack was a customer approaching her and warning: "You all need to close the doors."

"I was confused. Next thing you know, we hear gunshots... all you hear is like 50, 60 gunshots," she said.

"We kept our calm as best that we could, tried to keep our customers calm... we shut the door, everything is closed. Nobody can buy anything. We're all hiding in the back."

Another witness, Elaine Penicaro, said she was finishing her shopping trip when she heard "all this popping".

"So we kind of just all just stopped. But then a second later, like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And we saw sparks flying like it was right in front of us," she said. "So we just ran into the Converse store. They locked the door. We all hunkered down in the back - and that's where we stayed."

In the aftermath, President Biden ordered the US flag to be flown at half-mast at federal buildings on Thursday. His call for tighter gun controls, however, was seen differently by Texas' Republican governor Gregg Abbott.

Speaking to Fox News Sunday, he said his aim was to target the possession of weapons by criminals and deal with a rising mental health crisis, rather than consider wider bans.

"This is something that we have been grappling with over the past year, and there are some potential easy solutions such as passing laws, that we're working on right now, to get guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and to increase penalties for criminals to possess guns," he said.

"One thing that we can observe very easily and that is there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that's taking place in America. And what Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it."