MESQUITE, Texas — A Mesquite barbershop is disappointed with the Mesquite Police Department and its response to a reported active shooter situation Saturday night at the Town East Mall.
The active shooter situation turned out to be a fight in a mall hallway. Barbers at Noah’s Cutz and Stylz felt that they were unfairly targeted by the police.
Travis Fields was at the shop just after 5 Saturday night when it all started.
“Kids got to throwing chairs, trash cans, benches and stuff,” Fields said. “Of course chairs being thrown around and they hit the floor — bam, bam — you hear a loud noise.”
Those loud noises were mistaken as gunshots and prompted the active shooter response.
The fight took place outside the barbershop, but in a video posted to Facebook, it shows Mesquite police officers pointing guns at the employees and customers inside the store.
“I believe they could have come in in a different manner, they could have come in and talked to us instead of drawing guns down on us,” Fields said. “They had my ten people in here scared, scared for their lives. People that work here, people that come here to get haircuts.”
Mesquite police responded Sunday saying they commanded those in the barbershop to lay on the ground so they could assess the immediate area. They went on to say that despite the frustration shown in the video, the response was to ensure safety for all people inside the mall.
Noah Floyd is the owner of the barbershop.
“Protocol is to get people out of the situation, out of the line of fire, not put them in the line of fire,” Floyd said.
Floyd said he hopes the response prompts changes in the department.
“In their protocol, there must be a level of competency to have an understanding about how to treat people when an aggravated situation is happening,” Floyd said. “And so I would love to sit down and have programs set so that people know how to handle themselves in these types of situations.”
Fields said everyone understands the situation was stressful, but he thinks they could have handled it better.
“Police are doing their job, but sometimes they are overdoing their job,” Fields said. “You ask for respect. We ask for the same respect.”
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