Police say popping tires may have been mistaken for gunshots, spurring panic at Garden State Plaza in Paramus
MAY 10, 2014, 9:37 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2014, 12:25 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG, MATTHEW MCGRATH AND ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD
PARAMUS — Panicked shoppers ran screaming from the Westfield Garden State Plaza on Saturday night believing they heard gunshots, which law enforcement officials later said was actually “falling metal stanchions.” The stanchions were knocked down as people ran because of a car fire in the parking lot that caused the car’s tires to pop.
“No shots” were fired, Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg said in an email at 11:55 p.m.
A large police presence had remained at the mall late into the night, many of them around the main entrance to Macy’s department store, as a Bergen County SWAT team and borough police searched inside stores to make sure that there hadn’t been a shooting.
Law-enforcement officials quickly determined that they didn’t need the same kind of police presence that they called on Nov. 4 when a man fired shots inside the mall before killing himself.
“It doesn’t appear to be a shooting,” Brian Higgins, chief of the Bergen County Police Department, said late Saturday, but he quickly added that authorities are taking every precaution to make sure that is the case. Instead, he said, the sounds of tires popping from the car fire, which occurred at about the same time as people called 911 about shots being fired, is “the best anyone can assume” about the cause of the panic.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/police-say-popping-tires-may-have-been-mistaken-for-gunshots-spurring-panic-at-garden-state-plaza-in-paramus-1.1013668#sthash.owCfUaMc.dpuf
Thankfully it wasn’t a real shooter.
Its unfortunate that if it was the ‘real thing’, the shoppers are sitting ducks since they cannot defend themselves.
Honest citizens in NJ are not allowed to have ‘concealed carry permits’.
An honest citizen, properly trained, would be able to stop a shooter.
Dialing 911 just brings the police to string the crime scene tape, take pictures, and make reports…after the fact.
we need full time police at all doors. what are the military doing . this would be good.
#2 so you desire to live in a police state? Why not stay home and lock your doors and windows and never leave home>