LEHIGH COUNTY, Pa. — For Tonia Smale-Lorenzo and her young daughter Isabella, there was no case of the Monday blues at their home near Palmerton. This day was much more stress-free and relaxed than Saturday.
"The first thing I heard was the screaming and the running. It kind of sounded like when you're in a football stadium, and everybody is on the aluminum risers, and they're pounding their feet to make noise for the game and their team. That pounding sound is exactly what it sounded like," Smale-Lorenzo recalled.
Smale-Lorenzo and her family were out and about enjoying a nice crisp Saturday. They went to a pumpkin patch to pick apples, then decided to hit the Lehigh Valley Mall. The family split up when Tonia's husband decided to go to nearby Home Depot, allowing the girls to do some shopping. That's when their peaceful Saturday turned upside down. When, according to police, around 5 p.m., gunshots rang out at the mall.
"Everybody has fight or flight, and I guess I'm a fight because I was ready to do what I needed to do in the moment, and that's where my thoughts were."
Tonia, Isabella, and a group of people hid and barricaded themselves inside a store, where they were forced to wait for two and a half hours without any cell phone service.
Tania adds that the response from mall personnel was fast and terrific, but wants to make sure all malls and populated places like that have available cell signal so that if anything like this happens again, they can communicate with loved ones and talk to police.
"I was thinking, 'Is this person out there looking to shoot multiple people?' I also thought to myself, my husband is at another store down the street without the vehicle, we were supposed to pick him up, he's probably wondering what's going on."
According to investigators, there were no victims during the shooting, and police are still looking for the suspect.
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