Police were called to Ontario Mills Mall on Monday after a bogus allegation of an active shooter, according to investigations. “A shooting did not happen,” Ontario Police Chief Mike Lorenz wrote in a tweet. “Ontario PD is investigating the person who made the false claim.”
A food court that was largely deserted and covered in upturned chairs was seen in a video shared on social media. Behind a booth, two people squatted on the ground. According to Sgt. Joe Estrada, the Ontario Police Department’s public relations officer, police were originally summoned to the mall at about 1:45 p.m.
“The call was just reporting a disturbance of people running through the mall, and it just developed and created panic,” he said.
Later callers claimed they heard gunshots and saw someone with a gun, he added. He claimed that the person who called the police to report an active shooter had done so on behalf of a relative who was present at the mall. According to him, police did not find any proof to back up the shooting reports.
According to him, it’s probable that the sounds that were initially mistaken for gunshots were made by people rushing through the mall and colliding with objects as they made their escape in the past.
Police and mall security were still looking into the incident even though nothing suggested that someone had purposefully called in a bogus gunfire claim, he said.
Even if several shops decided to close for the rest of the day, the mall remained open for business, according to Estrada.
“We did provide a couple of additional officers out there,” he said, “just to give people peace of mind while they’re shopping today.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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Related Post; 16-year-old Mississauga boys identified as 2 killed in eastern Ontario shooting
The victims of a double homicide in eastern Ontario have been identified as two 16-year-old lads from Mississauga. According to the Ontario Provincial Police, just before 3 a.m. on Monday, officers from their Upper Ottawa Valley branch went to a house on Mackay Street in Pembroke, Ontario.
According to authorities, two victims were located with potentially fatal gunshot wounds and were transferred to a hospital. At the hospital, one of them was identified as deceased.
A third victim was found dead in the “immediate area,” police said. On Friday, officers identified the two individuals who died as 16-year-olds Noah Nathaniel Annis and Alando Omario Davidson, both boys from Mississauga.
The gender of the injured individual wasn’t released, but police said they are also a 16-year-old Mississauga resident.
Police have not identified any suspects or made any arrests in connection with the case, despite the fact that they believe the victims were the intended targets, according to authorities.
The investigation into the two homicides in Pembroke is connected to one looking into a deadly shooting that occurred in the Town of Renfrew a few days earlier, according to the OPP earlier this week. However, investigators stated they “cannot speculate on any potential connections.”
“We haven’t established if there’s a connection but we are still speaking in case there does turn out to be one,” provincial Const. Mike Mahon told Global News on Friday.
“But at this time we can’t speculate as to whether they’re connected or not.”
The OPP said there will continue to be a large police presence in the area of the Pembroke homicides as the investigation continues.