‘I was shaking.’ Large disturbance at Roosevelt Field Mall sends shoppers into panic

Nassau police was at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City Sunday afternoon following a large disturbance that caused a panic among mall shoppers.

Police say the panic stemmed from what shoppers thought was an active shooter incident.

Detectives say no shots were fired.

Nassau police say there was a large disturbance in the southern end of the mall near Macy’s just before 4 p.m. Detectives say there was no indication of shots fired, but that a chair or something hit the floor and made a loud noise.

Video on social media captured the moment in which parents ran out of the mall with their children amid the confusion and fear.

A social media user posted on Twitter that it was an absolutely “terrifying event.” She said she heard the sound of people running, screaming, crying and that she never wants to experience that again.

“It’s really frightening and, you know, I was shaking,” said Pia Grace LaPay, of Glen Cove. She was shopping at the store Zara when she heard a disturbance. Then she and another shopper hit the ground and crawled into a basement area of the mall thinking it was an active shooter incident.

Justin Rodriguez was in the food court.

“There was a lot of people jumping, jumping over the planters and stuff. People are rushing, rushing outside the dining court,” he said.

There were no major injuries, but afterwards, while police were searched the parking lot for evidence, News 12 cameras caught a crime scene technician recovering what looked like a gun.

Some stores went into lockdown mode.

But even with all of the chaos in the mall and in the parking lot, some shoppers on the top floor of Macy’s said they didn’t hear a thing.

“It was like nothing happened at all up there, yeah,” said Karolina Lempert, of Bayside.

The mall started to get back to normal a little while after police secured the scene.

Nassau police say the incident is still under investigation.