In the age of mass shootings, terror waits at the mall
BOCA RATON, Fla. – Meredyth Capasso could see the familiar look of panic wash over her daughter’s face. As mall shoppers cried out while racing for cover, and police in tactical gear fanned out in search of a suspected shooter, Capasso reached into her bag and pulled out something to take the edge off.
Capasso took a bite of a pill and offered the other half to her daughter, who took cover under a desk in a back room of Tiffany & Co. They stayed in their hiding spot, fearful that a shooter would find them inside Boca Raton’s Town Center mall.
It was that moment on Oct. 13 that Capasso, her daughter and apparently the thousands inside the mall believed they were caught up in yet another mass shooting in yet another city in yet another venue that has now marred the United States’ landscape. They thought they’d joined the ever-expanding network of communities touched by mass violence. They thought that they, too, could possibly die.
That’s life in America now. We all live in terror, waiting to become the next victim.
But what happened at the mall was not a mass shooting. It was a false alarm: A balloon popped when a mall employee pushing a garbage cart rolled over it in the mall’s food court. Less than two minutes later on the other end of the food court, a balloon popped between someone’s legs.
Sunday’s false alarm was only the latest to jolt crowds into seeking shelter:
– In August, thousands sought shelter in New York’s Times Square when the noise of a motorcycle backfiring triggered chaos in the streets.
– In a Chicago office tower a month before, police evacuated the building and shut down several streets after fear spread that a mass shooter was nearby. The original cause of the commotion, it turned out, was a training class.
– In May, a false active shooter report caused festivalgoers to flee the Rolling Loud music festival at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
– In August 2018, panicked shoppers poured out of Sawgrass Mills mall in Sunrise as rumors spread that shots were fired inside the largest outlet mall in the country. It, too, was a false alarm, possibly started when security guards may have run into some garbage cans while chasing a suspected shoplifter.
– A loud noise at Miami’s Dolphin Mall two years ago caused people to flee, believing a shooting had happened.
Years ago, the popping of a balloon would have startled people. Today, the sound does so much more. ––– The trauma was real for Capasso, who lived in Battery Park on 9/11, directly across from the Twin Towers the day they came down. She knew two of the close to 3,000 people who were killed during the terrorist attacks.
Now a transplant living in West Boca, Capasso she said that feeling that you are under siege is real.
“You are in a war zone,” the 49-year-old Capasso said. “I don’t care that it was a balloon.”
At shortly past 3 p.m. Oct. 13, the doors to Tiffany & Co. came down. The entire mall was locked down. SWAT teams swarmed the 220-store building. Helicopters hovered overhead. Capasso’s mother cried into the phone demanding more information when Capasso called her to say she wanted her to know she was trapped in the mall – just in case something happened.
Capasso said she felt like she was sucker-punched as she read a message from a friend, warning her to make sure her phone was on silent so the shooter wouldn’t hear it go off.
That was her world Sunday. That is her world now.
“Who would have thought that we need to be prepared like this?” Capasso said. “Who would have thought that there was actually a guidebook to deal with mass shootings? Apparently there is and it says to turn your goddamn phone off.”
To Capasso, that’s what terrorism is.
“We are living in a state of terror,” she said. “We have created a climate where we are going to hear about this again and again and again in different states and in different cities. I think we are going to be seeing a lot of people being trampled over incidents where a car backfires.”
Ten months into 2019, there have already been nearly as many mass shootings as last year, according to statistics tracked by The Washington Post. According to their analysis, 25 mass shootings occurred in 2018. This year’s 24th mass shooting happened at a popular bar in Kansas City, Kan., on Oct. 6, and brought the tally of those killed in these shootings to 68.
There is no universally accepted definition of a mass shooting. The Washington Post looked at shootings in which four or more people were killed by a lone shooter, and two shooters in very few cases. These shootings do not include ones tied to gang disputes or robberies that went wrong, or domestic shootings that took place in private homes.
According to The Post, most of the victims are chosen not for what they’ve done, but because of where they were. These shootings account for a small fraction of the country’s gun deaths, – nearly 11,800 in 2019, not including suicides – but they are particularly terrifying because they occur without warning in the most mundane places. We’ve seen them happen with greater frequency over the last 20 years – at malls, festivals, schools, nightclubs, places of worship, movie theaters and grocery stores.
Americans in an evergrowing number of communities are shaken. Shaken from false alarms. Shaken by yet another act of unbelievable violence.
Fourteen schoolchildren and three educators were killed and 17 other people wounded by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Thirteen months earlier, a gunman had killed five people and wounded eight at Fort Lauderdalehollywood International Airport.
“We are terrorizing ourselves with all this craziness in this country,” Capasso said.
Sunday’s widespread panic is a logical, understandable reaction – and one that should be expected from communities neighboring Parkland, said Scott Poland, a psychology professor at Nova Southeastern University.
He travels to communities across the country offering counseling to victims affected by mass shootings, including Parkland.
“I really think it’s quite understandable, especially given where we live,” Poland said.
Karen Rosenberg, a grief, loss and trauma therapist based in Boca Raton, sees it the same way. She’s been in private practice for 20 years and has worked with all ages through all types of loss and trauma, most recently with the MSD shooting. There’s a longterm ripple effect in communities affected by a mass shooting, she said.
“The reaction that we saw Sunday exemplified that,” Rosenberg said. “Our community is so impacted. ... Something like a balloon causes people to literally fall to their knees in fear.”
This heightened sense of doom has caused people to pause and assess where they are before going to the movies, to a concert, she said. Having metal detector wands wave over masses is a constant reminder of a strange new normal.