Five killed in Chicago-area store shooting

Police stand watch outside a Lane Bryant store where a shooting occurred in Tinley Park, Illinois February 2, 2008.

TINLEY PARK, Illinois (Reuters) - Five females were shot and killed inside a clothing store at a suburban Chicago shopping center on Saturday, said police, who were searching for a lone gunman.

"We still don't have any motive," Tinley Park Police Sgt. T.J. Grady told reporters. He declined to list the ages of the victims, beyond saying they were all "females," or whether they were customers or employees of the Lane Bryant women's clothing store in the suburb southwest of Chicago.

Police said they found "multiple victims who had been shot and killed" inside the store at the Brookside Marketplace shopping center when they responded to an emergency call at 10:44 a.m. CST.

Hours after the shootings, officials pulled vans in front of the store to remove the victims.

Police said the suspect had fled and they issued an alert for a man wearing black jeans, a black waist-length winter coat and a black knit cap.

(Additional reporting by Michael Conlon and Chris Stebbins; Editing by Peter Cooney)