ALLEN, Texas – A shooting at a Texas mall left eight people dead at the scene, including an Eastern Michigan University graduate.
The Ypsilanti university reported on Tuesday that Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26, graduated in 2020 with a master’s degree in construction management and was working as a project engineer at a Texas construction firm.
Thatikonda’s boss told NBC News how he found out about the death of the young engineer. Srinivas Chaluvadi said that Thatikonda never showed up to a scheduled work meeting for his firm. Many hours later, Chaluvadi was notified that she was one of the victims of the mall shooting.
“It was delayed identification because her face was mutilated, totally unrecognizable,” Chaluvadi told NBC News. “It’s a grief I’ve never experienced. I pray that this situation doesn’t happen to anybody.”
We are deeply saddened to learn that an EMU grad was among those killed in Saturday's shooting at a mall outside of Dallas, Texas. Aishwarya Thatikonda graduated from EMU in Dec. 2020 with a MS in construction management. She will forever be remembered as a strong EMU Eagle.💚
— GameAbove College of Engineering And Technology (@emu_cet) May 9, 2023
On May 6, a gunman stepped out of a vehicle and started shooting people with an AR-15 style gun at an outlet mall near Dallas. Among the eight who died at the scene, there were nine victims who were injured and taken to a nearby hospital. Since the transport, two more died. Officials said that three people were in critical condition and four were in stable condition.
Some of the other victims involve three children under the age of 10, and five adults between the ages of 21-40.
Authorities have not identified a motive behind the 33-year-old gunman’s attack, but they have acknowledged that the man had a fascination with white supremacy.
---> Read more: What to know about the mass shooting at a Texas mall