Authorities are searching for a gunman who opened fired inside a sprawling mall in New Jersey Monday night shortly before closing time, city officials said.
Authorities are still sweeping the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall early this morning, in the event the shooter is still inside.
People are only being allowed in and out of the mall with police escort, Paramus Mayor Richard LaBarbiera said at a Monday night news conference. LaBarbiera said police have found a single shell casing in the 2.2-million-square-foot mall, but Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg said in a statement that the gunman fired "several shots" and the weapon has not been recovered.
There have been no reported injuries at this time.
The shooter is reported to be male, armed with some kind of rifle or shotgun, wearing a motorcycle-style helmet and black clothing, according to an alert that law enforcement from Bergen County issued shortly after 11 p.m.
Mall restaurant employee Joseph Rivera said his co-workers saw the suspect "…in full body armor. He had a huge rifle and a helmet on."
Bergen County spokeswoman Jeanne Baratta said the first call came in shortly after 9 p.m.: "Gunman inside the mall." Police initially responded to an "active shooter" alert after reports of multiple shots fired.
Baratta said SWAT teams and other police agencies converged on the mall and an area around Nordstrom.
Panicked shoppers raced toward the exits or hid inside the mall. Witnesses said they saw authorities running inside the mall with their weapons drawn. The mall was immediately placed on lockdown.
"I saw like 20 police officers running with what looked like machine guns, just running into the mall," an unidentified witness told ABC News Radio.
Initial reports from authorities responding to the scene had witnesses describing a potential shooter wearing tactical gear, with a backpack and wearing a helmet, a federal law enforcement source told ABC News.
"I did see him walking in the mall just in front of the Apple store wearing black and wearing something on his back. Looked like two gas balloons and then he was walking with a very big rifle and shooting in the air," eyewitness Talli Rosner said.
Several mall employees ran to the Chili's Grill & Bar. A Chili's employee, who identified himself only as Sean, told ABC News that about 30 patrons and employees were holed up in the restaurant, which is about 100 yards from the mall.
A staging area has been set up near Chili's for family members to be reunited with anyone inside the mall during the lockdown.
Law enforcement officials have been informed by management of the Garden State Plaza Mall that it will be closed today. No word on when it will re-open.
Nordstrom tweeted early this moring that everyone was safely released from the store inside the mall.
The Garden State Plaza Mall, about 25 miles west of New York City, features more than 300 retail stores including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, Gucci and Louis Vuitton.