Short Hills mall might consider security changes after fatal carjacking, manager says
A mall security guard blocks the entrance to a parking garage by Nordstrom department store located at the Mall at Short Hills after Sunday night's shooting and carjacking. The mall's manager said today the shopping center has good security, but would consider making changes. (Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger)
By Tom Haydon and Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
MILLBURN — As shoppers returned to the Mall at Short Hills today, the manager of the upscale shopping center said mall officials might consider making changes to its security plan in the aftermath of last night's fatal carjacking.
Michael J. McAvinue, the mall's general manager, said stores opened at 8 a.m., as scheduled. The lower levels of the parking garage where shopper Dustin Friedland was shot Sunday night re-opened this afternoon.
Police are searching for two assailants who fled in Friedland's silver Range Rover after shooting the Hoboken attorney in the head as he returned to his car with his wife around 9:10 p.m. The car was found today behind a vacant house in Newark, near Route 78.
McAvinue declined to comment on the shooting, which he said remains an active police investigation.
"Our number one priority is the safety of our customers and our store employees, and we are doing everything we can to cooperate with police," McAvinue said.
When asked about mall security, McAvinue said the shopping center officials would consider reviewing procedures in response to the shooting.
"We have a very good security program in place. Would we be willing to review that? Absolutely," he said.
The Mall at Short Hills uses an outside contractor, International Protection Corporation, to provide security for the inside and outside of the mall, McAvinue said.
International Protection Corporation, based in Illinois, is a large firm that provides security to malls and shopping centers around the country.
Donald Lantz, International Protection Corporation's senior executive vice president, declined to comment on the Mall at Short Hills shooting or security at the site.
The Mall at Short Hills, located in Millburn, has more than 150 stores and restaurants, including Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue. The mall is owned by Taubman, a Michigan-based retail company.
Violent crime is rare at the mall, though there have been a few robberies reported by shoppers returning to their cars over the last decade. In 2009, a man with a knife robbed and attempted to kidnap and carjack a 56-year-old Randolph woman leaving the mall. In 2006, two women were carjacked at gunpoint outside Joe's American Bar & Grill on the lower level.
The Mall at Short Hills shooting comes a month after a gunman entered the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus. That mall was evacuated as a 20-year-old Teaneck man fired randomly into the ceiling before eventually committing suicide in a remote section of the building.
Holiday shoppers flocked to the Short Hills mall this morning despite the shooting. By mid-day, all of the mall's surface parking lots were filled and there were lines of cars waiting to get into the parking garages.
Inside, Christmas music played over the speakers and there was a long line of children and parents waiting to take photos with Santa Claus.
Several shoppers said they heard about the shooting, but it didn't keep them away from the mall.
"The place is pretty crowded. People are not staying home," said Helen Kay, of Warren Township, as she left the mall with several shopping bags.
Kay said the carjacking was tragic, but it didn't make her chose another mall to do her shopping.
"If you worry like that, you wouldn't come out of your house," Kay said.
Rick Hendriksen and his wife also listened to news reports of the shooting, but decided to make the trip to the mall from their home in the Somerset section of Franklin Township.
"It's horribly tragic, but you can't stop living," Hendriksen said.
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