Surviving A Terrorist Attack On A Shopping Mall
While the current trend for developers who build shopping malls is to design a more “outdoor” type of mall, there are still many, many “indoor” malls that see a ton of traffic on a daily basis. Maybe it’s just my twisted nature, but I’ve been of the opinion for some time that malls have long been soft targets for anyone with terrorism in mind. I have been quite surprised that there haven’t been more incidents in United States shopping malls than we’ve seen.
Malls are filled with women and children, who are the type of target that those interested in terrorism love to go after. Most malls have prominent signs on the doors announcing that concealed weapons are prohibited from being carried into the mall. While this will absolutely stop law-abiding citizens from bringing their sidearm into the mall with them, this means that terrorists or other criminal-types will find just about everybody in the mall to be completely defenseless.
Recently, we have had a mall shooting here in Omaha, Nebraska that brought home the fact that extreme situations can happen at any time, anywhere. My wife had shopped at the Westroads mall that day, leaving the parking about 20 minutes before Mr. Hawkins entered Von Maur with his weapon and killed several people with it. I hate to consider wht would have happened it she had encountered the gunman up close and personally. My wife is not the action-hero type and wouldn’t ever consider carrying a concealed weapon – her only chance would have been to run as fast as she could.
I fully expect more of these types of situations in the future as our society continues to degenerate. In the spirit of sharing, I’ve put together a list of tips and strategies that you can hopefully use if you ever find yourself in a situation where a terrorist or group of terrorists have taken over a shopping mall that you happen to be at.
Officer Responding To A Mall Shooting
People’s natural stress response is one of the three “F’s” – Fight, Flight or Freeze. Do not freeze. Get moving. You need to get out of the “kill zone” as quickly as possible. If you’re shopping by yourself, spread out and get away from other people! Getting into a dogpile with other shoppers just makes for a large, neatly packaged target for the shooter or shooters to aim at.
Stay quiet. Do not scream or yell. Sound attracts attention. Use hand signals to communicate with other people.
After about 10 seconds of shooting, you will have a window of opportunity to escape while the shooters are reloading. Use this time to exit the “kill zone” as quickly as possible. While the shooters were firing, you should have been able to determine roughly where the shooters are located. Move from cover to cover to escape the “kill zone” while staying as low as possible. If you absolutely have to cross an open area, wait for a lull in the firing.
You may have a greater opportunity to escape if you go into a store since all stores in a mall are required to have a fire exit in the back. The nearest doors and other obvious escape routes may have been chained closed. Fire escape doors may have been chained closed by the terrorists to keep people in and the police out.
Once in a store, head towards the back and find the exit to the hallway which runs behind the stores. Be sure to move pallets or other items in front of the rear door to the store you just exited to create other quick obstacles to hamper any pursuit.
If you can’t leave through the fire escape, go back into the store. Use the store phone to call 911, if you haven’t already used your cell phone to do so. If possible, use a store computer to print out maps of the mall from the mall’s website. Take cover in the store until you have a plan of escape. Search for anything that can be used as a weapon or tool. Look for scissors, box cutters, metal bars taken from display shelves or anything else with an edge or some heft to it.
If a terrorist group has actually taken control of the mall itself, a good escape route could possibly be the freight elevator near the food court which leads down to the loading dock area. This is usually a large area that is difficult to contain and will probably be where a SWAT team enters.
Local police will be the first to arrive. Depending on your city, they could arrive in force within two to 15 minutes. A SWAT team will take much longer to arrive. In the Omaha Westroads shooting, the first police units arrived within 6 minutes of the first 911 call.
A serious terrorist attack will likely plan on dealing with a police presence. There may be improvised explosive devices (IED’s) placed at main entrances to keep standard police units from entering. Keep an eye out for any boxes or packages placed at entrances and exits and give them wide berth.
After about 10 minutes, it’s reasonable to assume that an organized terrorist group determined to cause maximum destruction will be going from store to store in a “cleaning up” phase, having killed all the easy targets in their immediate vicinity. You will need to prepare yourself for this eventuality, and your best chance for survival is if you have a few people on your side.
You will need a shield. Locate anything that can be used as a container – a briefcase, a suitcase, a box or a large bag. Fill this container with phone books, leather items or anything else with some weight and thickness behind it. Phone books in a suitcase would be optimal.
When a terrorist enters the store, everyone available absolutely has to get involved. The group needs to work as a team to ambush the shooter. One person takes the shield and rushes the shooter in order to “pancake” him, while another team member uses a bar to swing low at him and another uses a metal bar to swing high at him. When the shooter is down, the fourth person bashes his head with whatever object will do the job.
To ambush the shooter, the team gets into “ambush” position and waits until he is in the middle of the strike zone before springing on him. Ambush position is basically surrounding the person so there is no one target for him to aim at and no escape when the group converges on him.
Once the shooter has been taken out, take his weapons, magazines, any body armor and any information he is carrying. Distribute these items to the individuals in your group and head towards your escape route.
If the shooter is carrying a radio, tape down the “transmit” button to create a “hot mic” situation that could possible prevent the terrorists from communicating.
When the decision is made to head towards your escape route, the group needs to move like a small military unit. Move single file, about a foot from the wall, with one person with a firearm covering 9 to 3 o’clock up and down in the front and one person covering 3 to 9 o’clock up and down in the back. The people in the middle of the line should help scan for shooters. Don’t walk too close to the wall as bullets often ricochet and travel down walls.
When you get close to the area that police may have already taken control of, put all of your weapons on the floor. If a SWAT team sees people with weapons they will, in all likelihood, shoot – not knowing if the people trying to escape were the terrorists or not. Keep your hands visible and in the air. Do not make any sudden moves or run towards the SWAT team. Follow all instructions given by the SWAT team. You and your group will probably be treated as terrorists until it can be ascertained that you’re not involved the victims.
Above all, remember that in a terrorist shooting situation, the goal of the terrorists is to kill. They will do so until they are stopped. They will be in a state of mind that defies reason. Do not attempt to communicate or reason with the shooters.
While most people will never be caught in such a situation, and those that do may find a mall shooting scenario unfolding differently, just having this type of basic information is a very good way to become more prepared. Usually after an active shooter situation all you get are sound bites on the news, not facts and explanation on how to best survive such an event.
Since training and muscle memory and all of the other vital skills necessary to survive such a situation require more than just reading an article or watching a movie, you may want to consider other ways to train to respond to such an event. Try playing paintball. While it’s not the same as getting shot at, you will become more adept at a number of useful skills such as reading your environment, identifying “enemies” who are hiding from you, traveling silently, etcetera. You may also consider taking a firearms course or two, and participating in practical shooting leagues and events which will increase your firearms skills dramatically.
