Surveillance video released Friday showed Garden State Plaza gunman Richard Shoop sauntering through the mall as frenzied shoppers ran for safety.
The video, released by law enforcement, shows Shoop, 20, clad in a motorcycle helmet and all black apparel on the evening he opened fire at the Garden State Plaza.
Shoop entered the Paramus mall with a .22 caliber rifle stolen from Shoop's brother, who legally owned it, and fired several shots—none of which appeared to have been aimed at mall customers.
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Shoop, of Teaneck, slowly stalked through the halls of the 2.1-million-square-foot shopping mall as innocent bystanders dashed for safety, as many as 400 barricading themselves inside stores.
Police scouring the shopping complex found Shoop dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a mall storage area around 3:20 a.m.
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“I do not believe Mr. Shoop thought he would come out of this alive," Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli told reporters at a briefing earlier in November.
Shoop, who authorities have described as a drug user, left a note at his family home, writing that “an end” was near, Molinelli said.
Friends and acquaintances of Shoop—many shocked—remembered him as "hard working and reliable," "pleasant and polite."
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