About that time I almost died!

Okay, so that's a little dramatic. I didn't almost die. But I was surrounded by cops with their guns pulled, and people were being arrested and all exits were blocked.

Okay, that's still a little dramatic. But it was exciting. Here's what happened.

I work in Pasadena, near the open-air Paseo Mall on Colorado (near Old Town). I walked with coworkers - Shawna & Deborah - to the mall to eat our lunches on the terrace. We chatted about work and how daft people are and generally enjoyed being outside. The weather was comfortable - not too warm, not too cold, clear sky and a slight breeze.

As we were nearing the end of our meals, a helicopter started circling above. A small thing, like a dragonfly, orange. We watched it for a minute then went back to our conversation. But the drone of the helicopter kept drawing our attention upward. I looked more closely. A police helicopter.

We didn't think anything of it. We gathered our things and headed for the nearest trash can. That done, we started to walk in the direction of the escalators that would lead to the ground floor, through the mall and back to the office. We had gone maybe 10 feet and my heart started to flutter.

Cops! In uniforms! With guns!

With guns?

They had their guns drawn and were peeking into the dark spaces between shops and near elevators. We turned to go the opposite direction, to take the long way back to work, but suddenly everywhere we turned there were more officers, guns in their hands or unclipping their holsters. We made a decision and hurried toward the stairs.

As we headed down, we could see the ground floor open area suddenly swarming with police. A man with dark hair and a goatee was approached by an officer at the bottom of the stairs and told to take his hands out of his pockets. As we hurried past, we heard the officer say "You look like the guy we're looking for," and the man was hand-cuffed and detained.

We headed to the street, deciding that would be safer. Detectives in Kevlar vests, beat cops and mall security were all over the place. They were watching all the foot exits and blocking the driveways from the underground garage. They were stopping vehicles from leaving and searching cars. They were at all the street corners and checking all the delivery bays and under in all the bushes.

We made it back to the office without any further alarm and tried to find out what had happened. Apparently, the bank across the street from the mall, no more than a block from my office, had been robbed and they thought the suspect had fled into the mall.

So... not quite as harrowing as I let on at the beginning. But a bit distressing nonetheless.

map of area
Pasadena Police "report"