This afternoon we went to the mall to see Ratatouille (a different mall than the one featured in post #9). The movie is about food and Paris, so of course Nina has been eagerly awaiting the movie since she first caught wind of it. Ben and Heather and Jake were there as well.
We saw all but maybe the last 60 seconds, I think. Based on what was happening on screen, the movie was about to wrap up. We absolutely loved what we saw. But, just before the end a man in street close walked to the front of the theater, and said, "everyone has to leave", and opened the emergency exit. The house lights stayed off, and the movie kept playing. The man did not appear to be a policeman or a theater employee. But, we all calmly got up from our seats and shuffled out the emergency exit onto the roof of the mall, wondering if maybe there was a fire or something. The patrons of the other 19 theaters streamed out as well.
I was so proud of the whole several hundred of us. Nobody panicked. Nobody screamed or ran or jumped. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, but someone talking on a cellphone said there had been gunfire.
We were led down a stairway to find the whole mall being surrounded with yellow "Police Line" tape. Before us were a couple ambulances, a firetruck, and possibly every police car in Tucson. We made our way to our cars, and, considering everything, made it out of the mall pretty smoothly. The entire mall was evacuated.
Details are still emerging, but what we know so far is that a verbal altercation between two shoppers (possibly gang members) turned violent, one of them pulled a gun and they struggled for it. Three shots were fired, both of the fighters and one innocent bystander were wounded, apparently none seriously. The incident happened at 3 pm, the mall was reopened at 5.
A lot more excitement than I was counting on for a Sunday afternoon, but we are all just fine. Except we don't know how the movie ends.
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