Lessons from the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall shooting...

... in Paramus, NJ. The Truth About Guns has some observations from one of the law enforcement officers which responded to the incident. Fortunately, the shooter was not interested in killing anyone but himself--he apparently was attempting to prompt a suicide by cop situation. However, it took so long for police to search and clear the structure that the man had given up and committed suicide before he was located. One interesting tidbit to me was the fact of sensory overload on the responding officers:

Once inside, he says he and the others were “bombarded with a stimulus overload.”


“Everything in a mall is designed to grab your attention,” he explains. “Mannequins are everywhere. You catch them in your peripheral vision or straight ahead when you’re scanning, and in your heightened state of alertness, they look like real people just standing there motionless.


“You’re trying to take in and evaluate information quickly, and the mannequins start playing with your mind. It was very frustrating the inordinate amount of time I had to spend looking at something to define it.”


The profusion of mirrors added to the distraction and confusion. Moving through one store, he says, “I was startled by my own reflection and almost shot it.” Also “wreaking havoc on perceptions” at times was glare reflecting off of large glass surfaces from strong commercial lighting and through skylights from helicopters sweeping the mall’s roof.

Something to think about.