Tonia Smale-Lorenzo dropped off her husband, Domingo, at Home Depot Sept. 19 and took her 4-year-old daughter for a quick trip to Build-A-Bear Workshop in the Lehigh Valley Mall. They had just enjoyed a great afternoon at Grim’s Orchard in Breinigsville and wanted to run a few errands on the way home.

Three hours later, the Bowmanstown woman left in an armored police vehicle, after being locked down because of shots fired at the MacArthur Road, Whitehall, mall.

After Smale-Lorenzo and her daughter, Isabella, picked out a bear for a birthday party the next day, she decided to walk downstairs and stop at Torrid for a minute to look at jeans. Suddenly, an employee in the front of the store yelled for everyone to get to the back. She lowered the security gate at the store’s entrance to the mall.

“I looked to the front and there was a stampede of people. All I saw was hands and hair flying as people ran past the store,” Smale-Lorenzo said.

Smale-Lorenzo didn’t hear shots fired, but she said the COVID-19 person stationed at the front of the store heard the shots coming from the direction of Modell’s and JCPenney.

“She said it almost sounded like something big was falling,” Smale-Lorenzo said.

The worker said she recognized the sound as gunshots and dropped the metal gate.

Smale-Lorenzo praised the workers for their quick reaction.

“They did wonderfully,” she said.

She left a note thanking the four employees who ushered the six customers to the storeroom at the back of the store.

“They barricaded the door, and we sat on the floor,” Smale-Lorenzo said. “They told us to keep quiet, to use our whisper voices.”

Smale-Lorenzo had crayons in her purse and she tore open a shopping bag for Isabella to color. One of the customers helped to distract Isabella to keep her from being afraid. He tore up store tags and made confetti to throw around, she said.

Inside the storage room, Smale-Lorenzo said, “It was an adrenaline rush, a couple of tears. Everyone was trying to stay brave for Isabella.”

The ceiling in the storeroom was open so workers said they could crawl out on a ladder if needed.

“If we could get out that way, it meant someone could also get in that way,” Smale-Lorenzo said. “We were sitting ducks. We didn’t know if the shooter was still out there.”

Smale-Lorenzo had no cell service or Internet on her phone inside the mall. Workers allowed the customers to take turns calling loved ones on a cordless landline phone they brought into the storeroom.

“There was no cellphone reception. In today’s day and age, they need to have cell reception or at least public Internet,” Smale-Lorenzo said, adding she is going to contact the mall ownership to push for that change.

Smale-Lorenzo was first to use the telephone because she had a child. She had to call twice before her husband answered because he didn’t recognize the number calling.

When he picked up, she said, “I told him, ‘We’re OK. We’re in the back room of the store.’”

Her husband left everything in a cart at Home Depot and walked to the Lehigh Valley Mall, where he would wait several hours outside for his wife and daughter.

While Smale-Lorenzo was inside the storeroom, police were looking at shell casings and securing the mall.

Multiple units were on scene, including local, state police and federal authorities. Members of a special response team were seen walking through the mall. When emergency personnel determined it was safe, they began going store to store to bring people out.

Both Whitehall Township police and Smale-Lorenzo said the mall was crowded Saturday afternoon.

“The line was 21 deep to get into Build-A-Bear,” she said. “There were lines everywhere in the mall. You would have thought it was Christmas.”

When police came to Torrid, officers lined up customers and staff and escorted them through the center of the mall through the exit to a waiting armored vehicle that transported them to the parking lot of Bob’s Discount Furniture, located on the outskirts of the mall property.

Domingo Lorenzo said police weren’t giving many details for those waiting outside. Someone at the scene told him the police first went through the mall with search dogs.

In a news conference that night, Whitehall Township Police Chief Michael Marks didn’t yet have much information to share.

He said police have few details and no description of the shooter. There were no victims, he said.

Shell casings were found at the scene, Marks said, adding people were asked to shelter in place in stores until they could be safely evacuated from the mall. Police were working to account for all the employees and said the main goal was to “reunite everyone with their families.”

“Our primary focus was making sure everyone is safe and sound,” he said.

Assisting at the scene were Allentown police, Bethlehem City police, Catasauqua police, Colonial Regional Police Department, Coopersburg police, Coplay police, Easton police, Emmaus police, Lehigh Valley International Airport police, Northampton Borough police, North Catasauqua police, Salisbury police, Slatington police, South Whitehall police, Upper Macungie police, Upper Saucon police, Wilson police, Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office, Northampton County sheriff, Pennsylvania State Police Troop M, Pennsylvania State Police Special Emergency Response Team, Allentown police Emergency Response Team, Lehigh County Municipal Emergency Response Team, Allentown Fire Department Bomb Squad, Lehigh County Emergency Management, Lehigh County Special Operations/Drone, FBI Allentown, Whitehall Emergency Management, Catasauqua Fire Department, South Whitehall Fire Department (Woodlawn, Greenawalds), Macungie Fire Department, Macungie EMS, Whitehall Fire Department, Whitehall Fire Police, Cetronia Ambulance Corps, Lehigh County 911 Personnel and Tactical Dispatch, Northampton County 911 Personnel and North Penn Goodwill.

In an update released Sept. 21, Marks confirmed three spent shell casings had been found. He said multiple witnesses have been interviewed, “but no clear and concise description of the suspect(s) has been provided to this point.”

Marks said police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspect. They are studying surveillance video and ask that anyone with cellphone video call Whitehall Police Detective Matthew Reszek at 610-437-3042, ext. 216.