Security at Lehigh Valley Mall questioned following shooting, third high-profile incident in two years
Whitehall Township PA Sept 23 2020
Tonia Smale-Lorenzo was among those caught up in the panic at the Lehigh Valley Mall on Saturday when gunshots rang out, sending crowds of people scrambling for cover.
Days removed from the terrifying ordeal, Smale-Lorenzo’s focus has turned to safety, and now she wants answers from mall officials about what they plan to do make the sprawling Whitehall Township center more secure for shoppers like herself.
“I’m a firm believer that something good should come out of something bad,” said Smale-Lorenzo, of Palmerton. “And this is going to be my personal mission here.”
Shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday, several gunshots were fired in the lower level of the mall, near Modell’s Sporting Goods, prompting a massive police response. As authorities methodically evacuated each store, retail staffers stepped up to save lives by following individual store protocols and ushering guests to safety.
No one was injured, and no one has been arrested.
Whitehall Township police said Monday they have interviewed many witnesses in the mall, but no “clear and concise description” of those involved in the shooting has been developed. Police recovered three spent 9mm shell casings outside of Modell’s, and are still working to secure surveillance footage from individual stores and the mall itself.
Mall officials on Monday referred all questions to their public relations firm, Chicago-based Reputation Partners. The firm did not provide any answers to specific questions about the safety measures in place at the mall and whether additional security will be added following the shooting ― the third incident involving guns or gunfire at the mall in just over two years.
“Lehigh Valley Mall is committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our shoppers, retailers and employees,” Reputation Partners executive vice president and general manager, Andrew Moyer, said in an emailed statement. “Our highly skilled and experienced security team utilizes seen and unseen security measures, and we have a close working relationship with local law enforcement to maintain a safe environment at our property.”
Smale-Lorenzo is no security expert, but she said she wants some assurances from mall officials about how seriously they are taking the incident.
She said she reached out to mall officials about spotty cellular coverage in the building, which has been an inconvenience in the past, but on Saturday it was a harrowing deficiency, she said.
“If it wasn’t for the employees doing exactly as they were taught in that situation, and bringing a cordless landline into the backroom with us, we would have had no contact with the outside. I couldn’t imagine being exposed or myself in that situation and being unable to call for help,” she said. “In today’s day and age, there is no reason they can’t have technology there to help get service to all the places inside the mall. It is unacceptable. It should be immediately fixed.”
James Dallas, a security consultant and investigator in King of Prussia who founded Dallas Security Inc. more than 30 years ago, called shopping mall security “a tough nut to crack” because of the size and layout of such facilities. Large parking lots, multiple entrances and levels, big crowds – all of these ingredients make malls hard to secure.
He said one of the most effective things shopping centers can do is host a police department substation, so law enforcement officers routinely visit the property. Whitehall police and Lehigh Valley Mall officials did not return messages to learn more about whether such a substation exists there or what kind of police presence is usual at the mall.
For a mall the size and shape of Lehigh Valley, Dallas said he would recommend having at least eight security officers on patrol at all times, four on each level. In addition to interior cameras, at least 20 security cameras with night-vision capacity should be trained on the parking lots, with separate security staff responsible for monitoring the screens.
“I would also say you’d need a minimum of two patrol vehicles constantly moving and responding to any type of event that might take place outside,” Dallas added.
Guards should be paid well and have at least 40 hours of classroom training and additional training in the mall.
“Back it all up with a substation for the police department, you have a good basis for security,” he said.
David Levenberg, a retail security specialist in Boca Raton, Florida, said security is “not necessarily a science, it’s an art,” because it has to be tailored to specific needs and any pattern to behavior or violence such as gang-related issues.
“There are no set standards for either manpower deployment or electronics,” he said. “Each property is evaluated, or should be evaluated, based on its own circumstances. That means tracking statistics, understanding what’s happening in the area by having a close relationship with the police to see if things like gang issues are escalating, looking at shootings and how frequently they happen. Any kind of pattern.”
A large company like Lehigh Valley Mall owner Simon Properties can also evaluate security needs for one property based on what it has done for other properties in its portfolio, said Levenberg, whose company, Center Security Services, Inc., includes security manual development among its offerings.
Security staffing will fluctuate during the year, too, Levenberg added. Malls during the Christmas season need more manpower than other times of year.
The most stringent security measures – metal detectors at entrances or security personnel checking customers with wands – aren’t really feasible, Levenberg said. But the industry is always trying to develop new techniques. He knows of one company that is training dogs to detect gunpowder residue, which could tell security whether someone is carrying a gun that’s been fired.
The sight of the mall swarming with police is all too common in recent years.
In February, employees and customers in stores at the mall’s outdoor lifestyle center were briefly kept inside after guns were drawn during an armed robbery and assault in the parking lot in mid-afternoon. According to police, one of the men who committed the robbery had himself been robbed two days earlier by one of the victims.
In June 2018, members of rival gangs clashed inside the mall, and the fracas spilled into the parking lot outside Macy’s, where a member of the Money Rules Everything gang shot two rivals from a different gang.
The shooter, Miles Harper, pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to two to 10 years in a state prison.
In 2001, Carol DiOdoardo, 38-year-old mother and teacher, was walking to her car in the lot on the east side of the mall when she was confronted by robbers and shot in the leg and head.
DiOdoardo’s husband sued the mall and the company that provided its security at the time, and settled for undisclosed terms. It’s unclear whether that prompted significant changes to the mall’s security apparatus. For example, only the indoor portions of the gang brawl were caught on surveillance cameras because there was no exterior camera.
As for Saturday’s shooting, Michael Russomano, a 21-year-old manager at the VR Cafe in the mall, said he trusts mall officials to do what is necessary to keep staff and guests safe.
Russomano and his co-workers helped usher 15 to 20 guests from their store to safety, and twice returned to the mall to help people who were lost in the service hallways and to retrieve belongings like car keys.
“Every day gets a little better,” Russomano said of the anxiety that descended once the adrenaline vanished on Saturday. “I was really shaken up afterward. But I had a great group of customers and coworkers. Everyone just remained calm. I think every mall employee who helped take their customers to safety were heroes.”
Whitehall police are asking anyone with cellphone video from within the mall between 4:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. to share it with them. Anyone who saw the shooting, but has yet to talk with investigators, is encouraged to contact Det. Matthew Reszek at 610-437-3042, ext. 216.
mccall.com
