On Friday, the Gainesville Police Department and Alachua County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call made about a possible active shooter and hostage situation inside of a bathroom at The Oaks Mall, which later turned out to be unfounded.
The Combined Communications Center reported the incident at approximately 6:30 p.m., said GPD spokesperson Brandon Hatzel.
The Combined Communications Center is a combined emergency communications unit providing services to law enforcement and emergency agencies across Alachua.
In a combined effort, GPD, ASO and the Gainesville Fire Rescue dispatched several units to the scene along with a helicopter. A SWAT team cleared the mall business by business.
Following their investigation, GPD later reported there was no evidence of an active shooter or hostage situation, according to a June 21 news release.
While helping a customer of The Oaks Mall Chick-fil-A around 6:45 p.m., Grace Wright said the fear set in.
“I look up because I hear screaming,” she said. “I heard cops screaming for everyone to get out at the top of their lungs, and I see a bunch of cops with big guns, and everyone in the food court just started running,” the 21-year-old UF business administration and economics senior said.
Wright said she and around 30 coworkers quickly left through the restaurant's back door to hide in Chick-fil-A’s trailer.
“Once I got in there, pretty much everyone was cracking jokes just trying to keep a little bit of a hold on the situation,” she said. “There's definitely a couple people who were really, really panicked.”
The group never heard gunshots, and Wright said she suspected the incident was a hoax from the start.
“Within the hour, I was looking on the internet. People are listening to the police scanner, and they said that so far there was nothing,” she said. “So I think once I got away from the situation, I didn't hear any shots at all. I was like, ‘I think we're totally fine.’”
Contact Lee Ann Anderson at landerson@alligator.org. Follow her on X @LeeAnnJOU
Lee Ann Anderson is a sophomore journalism major and The Alligator’s Summer 2023 criminal justice reporter. In her free time you can catch her reading articles, talking to her cat or losing her mind.
