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Mall Security Waited An Hour To Alert Employees To Active Shooter

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

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Steve Birr Vice Reporter
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Security at a mall in Maryland waited more than an hour to alert workers about an active shooter on the premises who killed two people and left another in critical condition Friday, a mall employee told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The mall security literally just notified us that anything happened at all,” the employee, who declined to be identified, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “At 1:30 someone came by with a printout. I got a text at 12:00 o’clock with the story of what was happening, before I knew what was happening in the mall.”

The suspect, a federal cop identified by police as 62-year-old Eulalio Tordil, allegedly opened fired on a woman outside the Westfield Montgomery mall in Bethesda and then shot at two people who stopped to help the injured woman, killing one. Police arrested Tordil late Friday afternoon.

Employees at the mall reportedly were not provided any information until well after the shooting.

Police updated the community on the shooting at a 1:30 p.m. press conference, saying they were concerned there would be another shooting before the suspect is apprehended. Workers in the mall received their first information about the shooting around that time.

“Security did nothing to block the area, no one knew what was going on, some shops were closing some weren’t and people inside the mall were not warned at any point by security,” the mall employee said. “Mall security failed to alert anyone inside the mall what was happening.”

Another woman was fatally shot at a Giant grocery store eight miles northeast, shortly after the first shooting. Police say the shootings are related. Police apprehended Tordil in a Kohl’s parking lot Friday afternoon. Tordil allegedly murdered his wife in a separate shooting Thursday.

A “shelter in place” order for Montgomery County school was lifted for most schools in the area.

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Steve Birr