When the shooting occurred at Dallas’ ICE facility on Wednesday morning, there were dozens of people inside. CBS Texas talked with several witnesses who arrived at the field office for appointments on Wednesday morning and were waiting to be processed when the gunshots rang out.

Blanca Estela Jimenez Arevalo described it as a very tense and scary situation. She recalls hearing the gunshots but was confused as to where they were coming from.

Witnesses describe chaos, fear as Dallas ICE facility goes into lockdown  

“As we were entering the room when we heard the gunshots… the cops that were inside started moving around, and that scared me because I said, ‘What’s going on?” said Arevalo.

Arevalo and several other witnesses say it was around 6:30 a.m. when they heard the gunshots.

“We heard about 20 gunshots… There were about 30 of us in there,” said an anonymous witness.

Witnesses say that with the facility going into lockdown, they were stuck inside for hours.

“They began checking the cameras. At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, but we started to hear gunshots. They didn’t say anything to us. As time passed, we started getting worried,” said an anonymous witness.

Three detainees shot at Dallas ICE facility; suspect was targeting ICE agents, officials say  

Nancy Larson, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said a collection of notes found at  29-year-old Joshua Jahn’s residence showed an animus toward ICE agents and that he had been planning the attack for some time.   

Larson said that early Wednesday morning, Jahn was seen driving his car with a long ladder. Officials believe he used the ladder to access the roof of an office building near the Dallas ICE facility, from where he started firing at about 6:30 a.m. 

Larson said he fired rounds the length of the building and intended to damage property, as well as hurt or kill ICE personnel.

The three victims were detainees inside one of the vans Jahn targeted, Larson said. One of them died, and the others are in critical condition, which has many in the immigrant community feeling uneasy.

Larson said law enforcement personnel from multiple federal agencies put themselves at risk to move other detainees who were in the vans to safety.  

“Yes, we’re afraid because right now, with the situation in this country, immigrants, we are the most vulnerable,” said an anonymous witness.  

Those who had appointments on Wednesday were told to come back on Thursday, only to learn that the facility was closed, and to come back on Monday.

CBS Texas has reached out to ICE officials to find out when the office will reopen.