Less than 24 hours ago, the scene at Dadeland Mall was different than on Sunday, after panicked visitors fled Saturday night from what was initially believed to be a shooting but turned out to be a robbery as specified by the authorities.
Sara, who works at Dadeland Shopping Centre, explains that “there was a problem at the food court and everyone started running…the reason is not clear to me, but it was very nervous because everyone started screaming. They heard noises.”
Immediately after the incident, a woman said she witnessed the shooting. Adriana Correa says: “I heard three shots and saw people running towards the door.”
Correa, who was waiting for her sister when the chaos began, says after hearing the alleged gunshots, they locked themselves in a restaurant.
“There was a lot of commotion inside, people were shouting: what’s up, what’s up?”, says Correa, who says she is sure that “something happened, I was there and I have seen it all”.
But this version was quickly denied by the police, who assured that no one had fired and that they were there to thwart a robbery in one of the commercial establishments.
But if it wasn’t gunshots, then what was heard?Some of those who experienced great uproar and panic after the alleged gunshots and the arrest of the robbers s ask.
“I guess maybe it was the tables or I don’t know,” says Sara, who works at Dadeland Mall.
And it is that the confusion and the rush caused various objects to fall and even some personal objects to forget, such as a pram that was left in the middle of the hall.
This Sunday, the scene in the mall is completely normal, although those who frequent it fear that another such incident could happen again.
“I think as a worker here in this mall we need a bit more police security,” said Marleny Urbina, who witnessed the incident at Dadeland Mall.
Something that Sara agrees with, adding that “there is not so much control over the issue of weapons and people are very crazy today”.
In the attempted robbery three people were captured and authorities are yet to release further details of the incident as the investigation progresses and new details of the incident which flooded a busy shopping center of the city in panic.