ALLEN, Texas — At 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, security had removed barricades that for weeks blocked the entrance to Allen Premium Outlets, and customers began to shop at what earlier this month was the site of a mass shooting.
It's been 25 days since the attack that killed eight people, the nation's second deadliest mass shooting this year. The mall had decided to wait to reopen until funerals and other services for all the victims had concluded.
“We were expecting nobody, but the turnout’s been ok,” Willie Escro, the owner of Escros Sneakers, said. “I didn’t want to open. I wanted to leave it closed a little longer, but it was time.”
“I think today’s a first step but it’s with heavy hearts and mixed emotions,” Alf Gonzalez, who owns the Fatburger franchise in the outlets, said.
Gonzalez’s daughter was working at the store that Saturday when the shooting happened. He feels indebted to the first responders who killed the shooter and aided the victims.
“To have the support of Allen and support of everyone outside of Allen, DFW everywhere, I think it means the world,” he said. “It makes the process go a lot better.”
Sources told WFAA at least two of the seven people injured in the shooting are still hospitalized.
“It is a tragedy that happened to them,” he said. “It’s unbearable. I can’t even imagine what they are going through.”
“I’m not trying to think about it a lot so we’re just trying to go on with our everyday routine,” Jerry Kha, who manages the Finish Line store, said. “We had a few customers asking if we were ok, like that’s out of respect. That’s out of love they’re showing to us.”
Kha had left just 20 minutes before the shooting for his birthday.
“It’s kind of exciting and kind of nerve-wracking,” Carringtyn Johnson, an employee at Finish Line, said. “I came up before the mall opened, and I got chills when walking in.”
Escro estimates about 90% of stores were open on Wednesday.
H&M, where the shooting began, had a handwritten sign on its front door promising to return "soon" but with no date listed. Thursday, June 1, the company confirmed with WFAA that the store will reopen on Monday, June 12.
Many stores provided employees an opportunity to work at other locations and are providing counseling.
Some customers and employees won’t return, though.
“We’ve got two guys that aren’t going to come back for sure,” Escro said. “It was just too much for them. I don’t blame them. If I had a choice, if I didn’t own this place, I probably wouldn’t come back here either.”
Police and security were at every corner, but so were customers, both serving as reminders that moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting.
“It’s ok to grieve,” Andrew Taylor, who came with his daughter, said. “But it’s also ok to show the world we’re not going to capitulate to evil and to bad.”