On Saturday, Sept. 17, violence broke out at Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud.
A Little Falls teen, Nicollet Gammon-Deering, said her experience at the mall on the night of the attack was “terrifying” and “crazy.”
She didn’t know it at the time, but 10 people were stabbed by Dahir Ahmed Adan, 20. He was eventually shot and killed by an off-duty police officer from Avon, Jason Falconer.
Gwen Welinski, a teacher in Little Falls, also at the mall with her daughter that evening, heard a commotion and saw people running while she was shopping in one store, her daughter in another.
Gammon-Deering and Jacob Biermaier, both seniors at Little Falls Community High School, had gone to Crossroads Mall that night to return a pair of jeans.
“We entered the mall at 8:05 p.m., but the violence broke out before 8:15 p.m.,” Gammon-Deering said. “From American Eagle at the checkout counter, we heard extremely loud bloody-murder screaming. Immediately, everyone recognized that it was not a usual scream like that of a child not getting their way. Something was wrong immediately,” she said.
Thirty seconds later, Gammon-Deering watched a mob of shoppers sprint through the hallway as the suspect ran toward Macy’s Department Store.
Kiosk employees immediately jumped the counters into American Eagle to hide after having witnessed the stabbings, said Gammon-Deering. Biermaier and the young girl working at the cash register ran to close and lock the store doors.
“There was chaos everywhere,” said Gammon-Deering.
Welinski said while people were running, “They were clutching each other and running with a look of sheer terror on their faces.”
She ran across the hall to find her daughter, who was shopping at the American Eagle store.
“This was extremely scary, as I didn’t know what was going on, if I would have to dodge bullets or something,” she said.
Welinski ran into American Eagle screaming her daughter’s name and yelled for the employees to shut the doors because someone was running down the hall, bloody and screaming.
“They put the store on lockdown. It was pretty frightening, as we didn’t know what was going on out there,” she said. “The fear of the unknown was awful.”
The teens said they felt defenseless because there was nothing they could do. The customers at American Eagle were locked in the store for around two hours, until the suspect’s location was confirmed to be at Macy’s, said Gammon-Deering.
At that point, the customers were released to quickly exit the mall through the food court on the side opposite Macy’s.
“We had to leave to the right of American Eagle, but the stabbing happened to left of American Eagle. Apparently there was blood everywhere, but I didn’t look,” said Gammon-Deering.
Welinski saw a highway patrolman, who was also a friend. He checked in with her family the next day to make sure they were OK.
“All of the officers were so compassionate and reassuring,” she said. “It must have been horribly scary for them to stand between the danger and the crowd, not to mention the process of securing the premises.”
After the incident, Gammon-Deering said that she won’t go to the mall for a while.
“People say it’s not going to happen again next time you go, but they don’t know what it feels like. It was crazy,” she said.
Welinski counted some of her blessings after the experience.
“The biggest blessing was the off-duty officer, Jason Falconer, who put an end to the horror,” said Welinski. “Imagine the number the people that would have been hurt, had he not been so courageous, smart and well-trained.
“Thank God there are people like him that are willing to risk dying in order to protect others,” Welinski said.
Not feeling safe at the mall for a long time already, after this incident, Welinski said she will never let her kids shop alone again.
Gammon-Deering said that though her experience was terrifying, she is fine. What amazed her, she said, was that something like this could happen so close to home, compared to hearing about tragic events happening in larger cities.
“After all of that, we didn’t even get the jeans,” she said.