The biggest shopping day of the year will arrive just a month after a shooting at Vancouver Mall. The Oct. 31 shooting in the mall’s food court left one man dead and two others injured. A suspect has been arrested. People who escaped the mall that night flooded social media with posts about the frightening experience. Some said they or their children were too scared to go back to the mall. Will mall security protocols change? Has foot traffic there dropped? Vancouver Mall’s management declined to answer those questions. But judging from the mostly full parking lot and bustling corridors, most shoppers are unperturbed.

Halloween wasn’t the first time a gun has been pulled at Vancouver Mall. In 2021, a woman in the mall pointed a gun at a family but didn’t fire it. That incident also didn’t seem to dampen enthusiasm for Vancouver Mall. In 2022, Portland Monthly magazine deemed it the best mall in the greater metro area. Training staff Malls have increasingly become targets for violence. Nearby Clackamas Town Center witnessed a mass shooting during the 2012 holiday shopping season that left two dead and a third injured. Another shooter injured six people at Tacoma Mall in 2005. Minnesota’s massive Mall of America, where multiple shootings occurred in recent years, tried new security measures, including facial recognition and gunshot detection technology, but abandoned metal detectors as an option, according to CBS News.

In response to a 2024 survey by the National Retail Federation, 72.3 percent of retailers said they were more concerned about violence during a criminal act in 2023 than 2022. And 65.6 percent saw mass violence/active assailant events as a higher priority than they did the year before. Violent events can be traumatic for businesses, as well as employees and customers. “It is emotionally and mentally very taxing,” said Mark Johnson, senior vice president of policy and government affairs at the Washington Retail Association. Johnson said Washington retailers who have experienced violent crimes have struggled. “The incident itself has rippling effects for months following that, which is very unfortunate,” he said. Those effects include property damage, decreased foot traffic and emotional trauma for everyone involved. Johnson said some retailers are training their employees and security staff for active shooter situations. But, he said, mall shootings in Washington are rare.

“This is a very isolated (event),” Johnson said. “We learn from it, we adapt. We become better and we will go out of our way because we know how important it is to have a safe, enjoyable shopping experience and a safe, enjoyable working experience.”