Durham’s Streets at Southpoint mall reopened Sunday morning after two days of fear-inciting incidents, including a bomb scare and fireworks that were mistaken for gunfire.
On Friday evening, fireworks set off in the parking lot outside the mall were mistaken for gunfire. Then, on Saturday afternoon, a suspicious package was found inside a store, causing mall patrons and employees to evacuate.
Calls for the suspicious package at Nordstrom came in shortly before 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, leading to an evacuation and investigation by the Durham County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad.
An employee at Nordstrom told WRAL News that, once the suitcase was discovered, they were instructed to calmly evacuate the store. Initially, only Nordstrom was evacuated, but as the investigation continued the entire mall was closed.
“They told us that there might have been a bomb or person of interest inside Nordstrom,” said Jaden Rigsby, who works at Chipotle. “They just came in and told us to close the store, just leave everything as it was and get out and get as far away from the mall as possible. I don’t know, I’m a little shaken up.”
This is the second false alarm at Southpoint Mall in two days. Friday night police responded to reports of an active shooter, but the noise turned out to be fireworks in the parking lot. Employees told WRAL scares like these are not good for business.
“It’s sad because I feel like retail stores are already probably struggling a little bit with online shopping and just the internet. It’s kind of sad that that could be impacting business,” said Kiara Boyd, a shopper. “As a small business owner myself, I would just hate to see things like that deter people from shopping in places like this.”
Police said the Streets at Southpoint will reopen at normal hours on Sunday.
