Posted on 05/11/2014 12:32:35 PM PDT by NYAmerican
PARAMUS (WABC) -- A crowd of frightened shoppers trying to exit a department store after smoke seeped in from a nearby car fire knocked over a metal support frame, leading to mistaken reports of gunshots and the evacuation of the upscale mall, authorities said Sunday.
A car fire caused tires to explode at about 8 p.m. Saturday at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus.
As smoke from that fire entered the store, workers told customers to leave. The moving crowd knocked over a large metal display stanchion on the store's main level, causing noises that many confused for gunshots.
Another display setup fell moments later as the frightened crowd rushed out of the store. Authorities say several mall patrons suffered minor injuries during the exodus.
Shoppers hid in restrooms as police swarmed the area. 70 percent of stores were evacuated, and 30 percent of the mall was on lockdown. Police went through the mall store by store to get people out.
Twenty-six-year-old Brittany Berdy, of Wyckoff, says she was eating dinner at a restaurant at the mall when she went outside and saw the tires explode on a car. She said the tire explosion sounded like gunshots.
Law enforcement from across the region descended on the mall as panicked shoppers tried to leave and hide, not knowing what was happening. Investigators still do not know what happened to cause the car to catch on fire, but the car's owner told Eyewitness News that she recently had work done on the vehicle.
The only injuries that were reported were a couple of people who were trying to run out of the mall.
The mall's restaurants and theater were open Sunday. Its shops are regularly closed Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
Wait until the current crop of high school students gets out on their own. They have been programmed to run shrieking at the sight of a cookie nibbled into an L shape.
I’m going to hazard a guess that less than half the people who heard this commotion ever heard a gunahot “for real”, because while an explosion, or a vehicle backfire might sound a bit like gunshots, falling displays would require that I suspend reality to think I was under attack...
And that is baaaaaaad...
Agh! Make that “gunshot” for real...
Let’s hope they never find out what Florida looks like on a map.
This is why I’ve long argued for regulation of potentially noisy metal support frames.
As it is now, anyone of any age can just go out and buy a metal support frame. That sort of madness just naturally has to stop.
I had some pretty good pot in my youth, but nothing as powerful as this:
“...after smoke seeped in from a nearby car fire knocked over a metal support frame...”
The masses in fly-over country may react quite differently.
/johnny
I’m surprised they didn’t have a police incident of inappropriate shooting during an event this large.
No dogs were shot?
Yeah, it got to me too. I thin it just a very long complication sentence.
I kind of like gunahot, if it’s pronounced goonahot.
Chicken Little response.
America - to employ a mixed metaphor - has become a nation of sheep.
Tires or gas filled shocks expoding from heat of car fire sound like gunshots - this was Garden State Plaza
6 Months back a druggie ran through mall shooting
Fortunately nobody hit and he killed himself later while police were searching for him
This was near Macy;s which is in center of mall.
There are over 300 stores on 2 levels
Good Point. I’m sure it seemed very real to all involved. I did not mean to disparage their individual responses. My point was regarding our typical “societal” responses. I suspect those stimuli 30 or 40 or 50 years ago would not have prompted the same response. I believe our government and media and educators are intentionally conditioning such responses in order to induce voluntary surrender of all control, and to run for protection to an all powerful central authority.
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