Panic, chaos after false shooter alarm

Theater criticized after misinterpreted emergency disrupts ‘Hamilton’ show

SAN FRANCISCO >> The Orpheum Theatre is “reviewing the events” that led to a false alarm about an active shooter and a chaotic evacuation of the theater during a performance of the musical “Hamilton” on Friday night, according to a statement released by the show’s producers and SHN, the theater’s owners.

“Uncertainty in the auditorium about a medical emergency taking place near the end of the show spread quickly and prompted the upset,” the statement said, acknowledging that the situation had resulted in “alarm and confusion for the audience.”

Three people were sent to the hospital with injuries incurred during the evacuation of the theater, authorities said.

The statement said the theater is contacting patrons who attended the show and inviting them back for another performance of the hit musical.

But angry theatergoers on Saturday criticized the theater’s handling of the incident.

“You’re in a darkened theater, and you see images of people dropping and saying ‘get down.’ You have no idea what’s going on,” said Stephen Andrew, who was sitting in the orchestra section.

“Your only instinct is to react. … It was sheer panic really, and there was nothing to calm it down,” he said, adding, “If they knew it was a medical emergency, they should have announced it. … That would have been the easiest thing to have done.”

Some audience members took to Twitter and other social media, describing the experience as terrifying and disorganized and the theater staff’s response as inadequate.

“There was absolutely no support from the staff, no announcement, no nothing,” tweeted Emma Yu, who also was sitting in the orchestra section. “I saw staff hiding themselves. The evacuation was self-organized. The audience was clueless and panicked, hiding behind their seats.”

Another audience member, Heidi Kling, tweeted: “It was mass chaos.”

According to the San Francisco Fire Department, a woman in the audience suffered a heart attack during Friday night’s performance, prompting someone to call for help. A defibrillator was pulled out, apparently triggering

an automatic alarm, which some people who attended the show reported hearing and others did not, said fire Lt. Jonathan Baxter.

That prompted panic to spread across the room, Baxter said, with someone reportedly shouting about a gun, causing people to flee the theater.

Police officers who were already present as part of a police detail assigned to special events were told by people leaving the theater that there was an active shooter inside.

Kling, in addition to tweeting about the incident, said she and the people she was with ran a block from the theater before ducking down another street and into a restaurant.

“The scene outside was bedlam,” she wrote. “People scattering and crying in whole mobs of people. After we’d run a whole block — in the cold, in dress clothes — someone collapsed so we thought the shooter was now outside and following us.”

The false alarm and the ensuing panic occurred at a time when mass shootings in public venues have sensitized many Americans to the possibility of violence.

Earlier in the day Friday, a man in Illinois shot and

killed five co-workers after being terminated from his job and wounded five officers before he was killed in a shootout with police, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In San Francisco, Baxter, of the Fire Department, said one of the officers at the site ran into the theater while notifying dispatch on his radio of a potential active shooter, prompting a larger police response.

The city’s emergency management system and police and fire departments were put on standby in case there was a shooter, although no such threat was found, he said.

The woman who suffered a heart attack was revived and taken to a hospital. Of the three people injured during the evacuation, one is believed to have broken a leg and two had moderate injuries requiring medical attention, Baxter said.

Laura Lasnier, who sat in the balcony with her husband and two children, ages 4 and 9, said that during the last song of the show, she heard a noise from the section of the audience near the front of the stage that caused a commotion and the actors to leave the stage.

The lights were shut off briefly, and her family hid under their seats because there were people on both sides of the row blocking them from leaving, she said.

Eventually they were able to leave their row and ran up the stairs and out the theater, she said.

While her family felt there was no active threat by the time they left the building, Lasnier said the lack of information about what was happening, and seeing people panicking and crying, made it hard for her children to calm down.

“I think we’re conditioned to think it’s someone with a gun,” Lasnier said.

Baxter said the theater’s emergency exits and other safety equipment were functioning and unblocked. To his knowledge, he said, the Fire Department hasn’t received complaints about the theater in the past.

He said the department received conflicting accounts from people about whether an alarm went off, with some people saying they heard an alarm and others saying they heard none.

“Moving forward and without pointing fingers at any individuals, our recommendation for individuals attending large public events is to take two to five minutes to evaluate your means of egress for any situation,” Baxter said. “Take time to talk to your friends and family about — if there’s a fire or earthquake or shooter — what are we going to do to get out.”