LAPD Quickly Squelches Internet Threat Against the Grove
On the heels of the tragic Dec. 5 massacre at a Von Maur department store in Omaha, Neb., The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles received a threat of a shooting attack. The threat was posted on the Internet on Dec. 5, but it was quickly snuffed out on Dec. 6, when the threat was traced to a 20-year-old man in Melbourne, Australia, said the Los Angeles Police Department.
Jarrad Willis, who allegedly issued the threat, was arrested by detectives of Australia’s Victoria Police Force for violating the Australian law of “creating a false belief” and other computer crimes.
Willis had not entered the United States to carry out this crime, said Michael Downing, deputy chief of the LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau. “There was never any real threat to The Grove, and there is no ongoing threat,” Downing said in a prepared statement.
A representative for The Grove said that the shopping center had never encountered a terrorist threat like the one posted by Willis. However, the shopping center had beefed up security for the holiday season, said Jennifer Gordon, vice president of public relations for The Grove. She said that the shopping center added more guards to patrol the property during the season. The extra staff includes retired officers from the LAPD.
There are not many more precautions shopping centers can take than to hire additional security guards, said Chris E. McGoey, who has been advising retailers and shopping centers on security issues for 23 years at his McGoey Security Consulting, based in Murrieta, Calif.
Taking full precautions against this sort of violence would mean employing security measures typically found at airports, McGoey said. Mall entrances would have to be cut off and security guards would be forced to look through consumers’ bags. McGoey said that these sorts of precautions would be expensive and would likely drive shoppers away from malls.—Andrew Asch
