Paramus, NJ – A person with a gun opened fire on Monday evening in a massive New Jersey shopping mall shortly before closing time, leading police to evacuate the mall and search for the shooter, a county official said.
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Bergen County spokeswoman Jeanne Baratta told The Associated Press that a call went out that shots were had been fired at the Garden State Plaza Mall shortly before the facility’s 9:30 p.m. closing time. She said authorities found one bullet casing.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers converged on a mall, which was put on lockdown. New Jersey State Police landed a helicopter in the parking lot of the 2.2-million square foot facility, one of the state’s largest and most popular shopping malls.
Baratta said SWAT teams and police with K-9 units were going through the mall and working to evacuate anyone who is still in there. As of 11:30 p.m., authorities believed there were still people in the mall, she said.
Jessica Stigliano, 21, of Richfield, told the AP that she was sitting in the mall’s food court when she saw people running and yelling “shots were fired.”
Stigliano said she also began running. She said at the time she was thinking, “Not many people run for their life, but that’s what I’m doing right now.”
She did not see a shooter. “It was scary to think that you could be that close to something like that,” Stigliano said.
A manager at Chili’s at Garden State Plaza told the AP they were on lockdown and could not leave. She said a manager at Nordstrom ran over to use the phone saying there had been a shooting. She did not say if the Nordstrom manager witnessed it.
Althea Brown, 26, of Paterson told NorthJersey.com she was in a clothing store when she saw a man walk by and then heard three shots followed by two more. She said he appeared to be wearing body armor and was wearing a helmet with the visor pulled up.
Several frightened customers sent tweets saying they were escorted from the mall by armed state troopers. One woman wrote that she ran from the mall “screaming.”
The mall is located in Bergen County, about 17 miles northwest of Manhattan.
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We need metal detectors in public places. Sad that we are just as much a threat to ourselves as anything foreign but this is the sick world that we live in and this country needs to start dealing with this new reality.
Watching them escort Jewish woman with her 2 daughters out gives me the chills. Could’ve been any of my family members
The terrorists (from wherever they may be-) have won.
We can’t fly anymore
We can’t send our kids to school anymore
We can’t go to the mall anymore
We can’t live a normal
Too many kids on mind warping drugs + violent video games = mall shootings
I agree with #5 . Anyone who shops at any public mall in the USA today, does so at their own risk. Unlike EY, shoppers are not subject to mandatory screening of weapons. Order online, as there is less tsouris. You avoid the crowds, the lines, people with colds, and you don’t have to deal with nasty clerks, who try to harass you into buying a store credit card, or donating to some charity.