Shared from the 8/12/2019 Houston Chronicle eEdition

Masked man provokes hysteria at mall

After throwing an unknown object, suspect escapes amid panic at Memorial City center

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Brett Coomer / Staff photographer

People gather outside Memorial City Mall on Sunday as police investigate a disturbance that forced an evacuation of the shopping center. Two people suffered minor injuries.

Picture
Brett Coomer / Staff photographer

Shoppers gather outside Memorial City Mall after a masked man jumped on a table in the food court and proclaimed he would kill himself while throwing down an unknown object, sparking an evacuation.

The quiet of a summer Sunday afternoon was broken at Memorial City Mall when a masked man jumped on a food court table and proclaimed he would kill himself before he threw down an unknown object, leading hundreds of panicked shoppers and store employees to rush for the exits.

Two people — a mother and her 16-year-old son — suffered minor ankle and leg injuries in the crowds, police said. The suspect remains at large and could face a charge of terroristic threats, police said. He was described as a white man in his teens or early 20s.

The hysteria prompted rumors of an active shooter just over a week after a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso and another shooter killed nine in Dayton, Ohio. Shoppers across the nation have been on edge since the slayings, and a teenage Hollister employee at Memorial City Mall fought back tears as she described hiding in the store.

“I started thinking about (my family) because they had told me they were going to be in the mall and someone took my phone,” Amor Leal said.

“Ever since (El Paso) happened,” she later added, “ I didn’t want to come to the mall. Even after the school shootings, I said I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to go to school.”

The mall was closed for at least the rest of Sunday amid an ongoing police investigation, though some big-box stores at the corners of the mall were expected to reopen Sunday night, police said.

The masked man first appeared around 3:12 p.m on video surveillance cameras in the mall, police said.

The man seemed to be moving up the escalators toward the Cinemark movie theater. About five minutes later, the man appeared to have donned a mask as he moved down the escalator toward the food court, police said. Shoppers said the mask covered only half the man’s face with holes cut for his eyes.

The culprit trotted through the food court, leaped on a table and announced he was going to kill himself, authorities said. At the same time, the man pulled the object, which was covered in toilet paper, out of a backpack and threw it on the ground, police said.

Police initially said the man used fireworks, and some shoppers reported seeing smoke. However, police later ruled out fireworks.

Amid the chaos, the masked man was able to escape the mall through a south-side entrance and run toward apartments along Barryknoll Lane.

Witnesses described a horde of shoppers running in desperation.

Sandra Torres, a Sephora worker, said she was in line at the food court when she heard someone screaming. She looked up and saw the rush of people.

“I couldn’t even turn around,” she said. “I actually got knocked down. It was a stampede.”

Torres said she tried to escape through a back hallway behind the True Religion store, but those exits were stuffed with people.

“We kept getting met by other groups of people who were screaming ‘Not this way, (the masked man) is this way,’ ” she said. “So every time we turned, there was people running. It was crazy.”

Fleeing shoppers alerted Harris County deputies working extra jobs in the parking lot. Multiple law enforcement agencies from surrounding jurisdictions descended on the mall, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Police later confirmed the object was not a bomb or an explosive. It was tagged into evidence Sunday night, but police still could not identify it, according to police spokeswoman Jodi Silva. No gunshots were reported.

“We don’t take this type of thing lightly,” said Houston Police Assistant Chief Sheryl Victorian.

Since the recent mass shootings, multiple episodes of panicked crowds have unfolded across the nation.

In Times Square, the loud pop of a dirt bike backfiring Tuesday night sent hundreds of people running, leaving many injured.

In Houston’s Uptown Park, diners on Tuesday evening ran into the kitchen of Flower Child and called 911 after hearing what one customer described as the sound of gunshots. When police arrived on the scene, they saw no sign of a shooter. A Houston public information officer referenced heightened safety concerns when describing the incident.

And shopping centers beefed up their security this weekend, according to the Houston Police Department and a private security company. Charles Levier, a security guard assigned to Walmart for Brosnan Security, said his company increased personnel resources this weekend due to both the crowds and the heightened threat of violence following recent shootings in El Paso and Ohio. Some Houston-area shoppers taking advantage of the back-to-school, tax-free weekend on Saturday said they left their children at home because of the potential for a shooting.

In December 2017, a similar scare unfolded at Memorial City Mall when word of a possible active shooter spread after a failed attempt at a smash-and-grab.

A would-be robber used a hammer to shatter a jewelry case at Ben Bridge Jeweler, sending shoppers scattering.

In Sunday’s incident, some shoppers and employees left their personal belongings behind. Police said people can pick those items up Monday at the security desk.

Nancy Sarnoff and Erin

Douglas contributed to this report. julian.gill@chron.com rebecca.schuetz@chron.com

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