Westfield Garden State Plaza back to business with emphasis on safety
Wednesday, November 6, 2013 Last updated: Thursday November 7, 2013, 12:49 AM
BY JOAN VERDON
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Westfield Garden State Plaza resumed normal operations Wednesday, and for the foreseeable future, it will be a new brand of normal, with heightened security and assurances that New Jersey’s largest mall is safe.
Thirty-six hours after Richard Shoop’s six rifle shots led to an all-night, anxiety-filled lockdown, the mall reopened at 10 a.m. Uniformed security guards and police seemed to be everywhere. Maintenance workers replaced glass doors that had been broken by SWAT team members who were checking locked stores, and mall employees swapped tales of what they did during the lockdown.
Shoppers returned, though in what appeared to be fewer numbers than a typical Wednesday in November. Most seemed unconcerned about the Monday night incident.
“I would feel differently if shoppers had been killed. That would be a different story,” said a Bergenfield resident who was having lunch with her sister at the food court.
But the fact that Shoop was able to walk from a parking garage through a mall corridor carrying a large and visible weapon highlighted a reality that is both the biggest sales asset and primary security liability of shopping malls like the plaza: Anyone can enter them.
Shoop, 20, of Teaneck, fired the shots in the air before going to a remote section of the mall and killing himself.
I feel much safer shopping in Ridgewood’s CBD.
You seem to forget some years ago about a mailman going postal in the village. Keep in mind there are crazies everywhere.