A shooting and a fight have prompted a large police response to the Great Mall in Milpitas
The Milpitas Great Mall was put on lockdown late Friday after police responded to a reported shooting inside a Burlington Coat Factory store.
There was no evidence of shots being fired, no arrests, and no victims, according to police on Friday night.
Hundreds of Milpitas police officers responded to the scene on Friday, but they have since left.
Milpitas police were assisted in canvassing the mall by the California Highway Patrol, the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office, and the San Jose Police Department.
According to Milpitas police, a report of a fight may have sparked the commotion and triggered the panic that resulted in the lockdown and hundreds of people fleeing or sheltering in place.
After officers cleared them to leave, groups of people exited the mall with their hands over their heads. Unfortunately, it was a scene that many had grown accustomed to by this point.
“We just saw a big crowd coming towards us and then we stopped for a second, looked at each other and were like ‘what’s going on,” said Isabel Murica of Newark.
Witnesses told NBC Bay Area that they saw a group of people fighting around 5:15 p.m. They noticed people running for the exits a few minutes later.
When the incident occurred, Johnny and Cindy Cruz were visiting from Texas.
“We left and went to the popcorn store, and all the sudden we saw cops telling everybody to leave, leave, leave, leave,” he explained.
“All of the sudden somebody yelled ‘shots fired, shots fired’ and then another lady in the store said, ‘close the doors.’ So they shut the iron doors down and they took us all in the back room of the popcorn shop,” Cindy Cruz explained.
Police said they found no evidence of a shooting or any victims after searching the entire building.
This is the third incident at Great Mall in three years.
The most recent occurred in December of 2020.
Murcia was present that night and on Friday night, and she has stated that she is afraid to return after both incidents. She went on to say that she hid in the back of a store with her boyfriend and their young son.
“I’m not coming here no more. It’s bad, bad karma,” she said. “People were crying, people were praying. Some parents had to put shows on for the kids to stop crying. Just a very scary thing to go through.”
According to police, it took about two hours to clear the mall and allow shoppers and employees to return inside to retrieve their belongings.
The incident is being investigated.