Idaho: A shooting at a restaurant in Twin Falls leaves at least three dead and seven wounded

A person opened fire Saturday at an In-N-Out restaurant in Twin Falls, in the state of Idaho, leaving at least three dead and seven injured, according to police. Authorities confirmed that the suspect was also killed.

Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said it was "a very chaotic scene," which initially prevented officers from even reporting the number of victims or whether the shooter was among the dead.

"A very chaotic scene"

Hicks warned that the number of injured could rise as the investigation progresses, given the chaos that ensued, with a large number of people fleeing. In fact, in his initial statements, city spokesperson Josh Palmer told NBC News that only two people were injured.

The restaurant where the shooting took place was an In-N-Out that had just opened its doors in a busy shopping center, and there were hundreds of people in the area when the shooting occurred, around 2 p.m.

Shots fired in the kitchen and terrified customers

According to videos circulating on social media and witness accounts, the shooting began in the kitchen as terrified customers tried to flee or threw themselves to the ground, Nayeli Rodriguez told The Guardian. She was at the restaurant waiting for food with her daughters when she heard shots coming from the kitchen. 

An employee said it was a shooting and told people to get on the floor. Rodríguez said that an older man tried to protect her and her daughters, and that they were among the last to run outside. "We were trying to get as far away as possible, and some angels let us get into their car. I left my car there, in the parking lot," the terrified witness recounted.

Injured employees and shooting of a man with an AR-style rifle

A man with an AR-style rifle appeared from the drive-thru area, and a bystander opened fire on the shooter, according to Lane Koehn, 34, who was at a nearby traffic light. Koehn said he saw someone in an In-N-Out uniform dragging another person, also in uniform, across the parking lot. The wounded person was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest.

The employee, Koehn himself and the bystander with the gun stayed on the scene until paramedics arrived to treat the wounded person. "She was in pretty bad shape, but I don't know. I hope she survived," said the witness. Another video posted on social media showed people fleeing the scene.

Twin Falls is a city of about 56,000 people in southern Idaho, about 180 miles northwest of Salt Lake City.