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Armed police leave an entrance of the Columbia Mall after a shooting at the mall in Columbia, Maryland, January 25, 2014. Three people died in a shooting at a large shopping mall outside Baltimore on Saturday, police said, adding that the suspected gunman apparently killed himself. Reuters

Three people were killed in a mall shooting at Columbia Mall in outside Baltimore on Saturday, police say. The alleged gunman is among the dead.

Chief of Police Bill McMahon said the shooting took place in Zumiez, a clothing and skate shop. Federal law enforcement says the shooting was a domestic situation and not a random shooting. The identities of the dead, including the suspected gunman, have not yet been released.

Eyewitnesses describe the shooter as being in his late teens or early 20s, wearing khakis, a white shirt, suspenders and carrying a shotgun. One woman counted nine shots before she made her way out of the mall. Another woman described being shot at by the gunman after a woman’s scream “took the shooter out of a trance, because when he looked at me it was like he looked at me as if to say, he had already shot two people and he looked at me he was just like stunned.”

One man who was in the store when the shooting took place told CBS Baltimore:

"I was in the store when the shooter shot the two victims. When I walked in the store, there were two employees. There was me and those two people. I was looking around and I saw the shooter come out of a back storeroom or a dressing room in the back right side of the store. He took a few steps; there was no talking; he was silent. He came at the female employee and took one shot and shot her. I didn’t know if it was real or not at first. I got down behind the counter and I heard the second shot. At that point, I basically just crawled out of the store right past the male employee and I got out of the store."

Following the attack, police immediately closed off roads around the mall. Eyewitnesses say SWAT members and heavily armed police are currently on scene. “This is an active crime scene and will continue to be an active crime scene for quite some time,” said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman.

Howard County General Hospital says they have received five patients, including one shooting victim. Two victims were taken to the hospital with injuries not directly related to the shooting.

“We have literally no violence in the whole county, this is our quota for 2014 basically,” said Columbia resident David Hobby to NBC News.