Surveillance Video Of Garden State Plaza Mall Gunman Released
PARAMUS, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Police have released video and 911 calls from inside a northern New Jersey mall where a man fired shots before killing himself.
As CBS 2's Christine Sloan reported Friday, security cameras show a very calm gunman dressed all in black walking through the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus on Nov. 4.
The video shows Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck, N.J, wearing a black motorcycle helmet and black clothes carrying a gun as shoppers and mall workers scrambled for cover.
Shoop fired several shots inside the mall and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No other injuries were reported.
Shoop's body was discovered around 3:20 a.m. Nov. 5 in a closed-off area that is under construction at the mall, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said.
Molinelli said Shoop had a history of drug use and said it appears "the main motive for what he did was suicide."
"It's a disturbing trend. People wanting to get their face on camera to be seen in their final hours," retired detective Dan Coleman told Sloan.
Coleman, who now heads a private firm that works with retailers and law enforcement to see how to bridge the gap between the two to make malls more safe, said he is convinced Shoop knew cameras were pointed at him.
"He knows they're going to look at cameras. We all know there are cameras watching us, especially in a retail environment, and so he knows it's going to be looked at in memoriam," Coleman said.
Police said they received so many 911 calls that they had to add 10 dispatchers and route some calls as far away as Pennsylvania.
Coleman said the video, which was linked to the Paramus Police Department, will be used to make shoppers and employees safe.
"Mall personnel and law enforcement are very actively implementing things so that they can get to the situation and the threat as quickly as possible," Coleman said.
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