Hundreds of people, including workers at Trincity Mall, had to be evacuated yesterday following a bomb threat that was received shortly after midday.
However, mall workers were left furious at the way the situation was handled and blamed mall management for not putting strategic security measures in place and for not briefing them on what should be done in case of an emergency.
“Especially an emergency of this magnitude, where messages went out this week of Isis bomb threats at a mall. There should have been immediate intervention by the management and security personnel in briefing us as to what to do, because when this thing happened we didn’t know what to do, we just went to the muster points and that was it, which was still close to the mall I personally find,” a mall worker, who did not to be identified, said.
The T&T Guardian was told that at about 12.45 pm an alert came from mall security for everyone to evacuate the mall immediately.
“It was crazy. Chaos everywhere. People were running out of the mall screaming. Drivers were driving their vehicles recklessly in a bid to escape the mall. There was real panic. No one was prepared for this. Not even me,” a mall security officer said.
Workers and visitors to the mall said when they got outside they began asking why they had to be evacuated. A mall visitor said he was told by a police officer that they got a report of a shooting near the taxi stand outside Excellent Stores, located on the northern side of the mall.
A worker said she was told by another officer that something was found in the mall. Asked what was the something, the worker said she was not given any further details.
During the evacuation process, there were heavily armed police on the scene monitoring the workers, moviegoers and shoppers as they came out the mall to the muster points located at five points along the perimeter of the car park.
About one hour after, the Fire Service, paramedics, Bomb Squad and other elite units of the T&T Police Service and Ministry of National Security arrived and carried out extensive searches inside and outside of the mall.
At about 2.30 pm, workers were given the all clear by police to return to their stores to collect their personal belongings so they could leave as the mall was declared closed for the day.
A moviegoer showed two tickets and said he had planned to utilise his holiday to watch two movies back to back and was highly disappointed over the turn of events.
“I find this get too out-of-hand. I come to relax and now faced with this. The only back to back I getting today (yesterday) is back to home. This place really horrible yes and I feel that this a joke for everyone, including National Security.”
Since Trincity Mall and Long Circular Mall (LCM) fall under Premier Malls, one of the group of HCL Group of Companies, management ordered LCM be shut down as a precautionary measure. At about 2.30 pm, fire service and police carried out extensive searches.
Shortly, after 3 pm another bomb scare was called in at the Gulf City Mall, La Romaine.
Efforts to reach HCL’s Corporate Secretary, Roxanne Husbands for comment yesterday were unsuccessful. But in an interview on Tuesday at LCM’s administrative office, Husbands assured their security personnel had already began heightening security measures, including carrying out extensive searches of both mall compounds.