SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Less than 24 hours after a shooting at Destiny USA, business was back to normal Saturday morning.
The mall looked like a much different scene compared to Friday. It was packed Saturday afternoon with shoppers.
“She just had to go to Nordstrom. She had to get a couple of things, and that’s about it,” said Aaron Dieter, a shopper visiting from Rochester.
But it was a scary and chaotic scene the day before. Shoppers were told to evacuate after a gunshot was fired inside the mall around 4 pm on Friday. The single bullet hit a trash can near Destiny’s central tower, towards the middle of the mall. Police shut it down early for the night.
Samantha Lick told NewsChannel 9 she had plans to go to the mall on Friday but decided not to go. Lick, who is originally from New Jersey says she is visiting her family in the Syracuse area. Lick says just last week she was at Destiny USA and had no issues.
“We didn’t come yesterday. But we were planning on coming,” said Lick.
Instead, Lick decided to go to the mall on Saturday afternoon.
“I think we are going to go to Apex. We’re going to go bowling,” said Lick.
Lick says she has been to Destiny USA a number of times and despite what happened on Friday, this didn’t stop her from coming back.
“It feels very safe and like welcoming here, especially with all the family-oriented things that are here. I feel like it should be a safe environment,” said Lick.
Lick isn’t alone.
“It seems like it was an isolated incident so you know who really cares. It’s not going to affect us at all,” said Dieter.
Dieter and his wife stopped at Destiny USA to do some shopping Saturday afternoon and the couple says they have been there before. They are originally from Rochester and told NewsChannel 9 they have no plans to stop shopping there despite Friday’s incident.
“It’s around so much. I deal with it every day at work, it’s everywhere you know. You can’t really not change your life for it you know,” said Dieter.
