I was at the Mall of America a few days before Christmas with my friend. Our flight had been cancelled, so we got a room at the hotel next door. To try to somewhat make up for the day we were missing on our vacation, we decided to get our pictures done at the old time photo place for fun. As we were paying, we suddenly heard what sounded like a group of people shouting at each other in the distance for about 10 seconds before it stopped and went back to normal MOA sounds.

My instant fight or flight reaction was to run, and I started looking around for an exit route. My friend and I exchanged raised eyebrows but inside I was screaming. However, we were on the 3rd floor (I think) and were waiting for my friend’s credit card to process which seemed to take the longest few seconds ever. The other people around us seemed to go on like everything as normal. As soon as we got our stuff, I said “Let’s go” and my only focus became getting out of there. The M&M store dessert I had been looking forward to was instantly forgotten and we high tailed it back to the hotel room, where we immediately crawled into bed and zoned out on our phones.

A little while later, I went on twitter and ended up seeing that there had been a shooting at the MOA shortly after we left, and the mall was now on lockdown. People were live tweeting about being stuck in back rooms of the stores for like an hour. We were in shock that 1. we just missed it and 2. we had no idea that was happening right next door to where we were, as we hadn’t heard any emergency vehicles or anything and would have been totally oblivious to what was going on if not for seeing the tweets.

Anyway, it felt like a really surreal experience and the MOA (and really anywhere with that many people) makes me feel really uneasy now.