ARLINGTON COUNTY, Va. — Arlington County Police are investigating a smash and grab that took place at Pentagon City Mall Sunday afternoon.
According to police, calls of shots fired at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City came in just after 3:30 p.m.
Preliminary investigation showed there were no shots fired, what people heard were hammers smashing glass cases at one of the local stores. Police say, three teen boys entered one of the stores inside of the mall and broke the display case using hammers.
The robbers then used the fire extinguisher to create a distraction to run away.
“The heart was racing. People were tearing up. You have no idea what’s going on," said Madi Dorsey, an employee at a store inside the mall.
She watched as shoppers scattered. Confused after loud bangs people thought were gunshots.
“As soon as we heard the yelling, I shut our door and then we shut our gates too," said Dorsey.
Her store was one of many sheltering people during the confusion.
"We took our customers back to the stock room because we didn’t want to leave them out there," said Dorsey. "That’s not really policy, but it’s safety. You have to bring them back there. We locked the doors, we put stuff against the doors so if somebody were to bust through it, they wouldn’t be able to.”
Police are searching for the suspects. Maria Hernandez says she saw their escape as people were filing out of the mall into the parking garage.
“Our car, luckily, was right there so we jump in and back up and then I’m like stop, because there’s people running behind the car," said Hernandez. "Then I noticed they were all in black with masks and hoodies. It was three guys, and they had backpacks, and they jumped into a small black SUV.”
After that car drove off, Hernandez thought whatever was going on, was over.
“We’re like, maybe we can go back in? We go back in, and we see on the ground broken glass, residue from the fire extinguishers and then we saw the mallets they dropped," she said.
After snapping some pictures, her family was quickly confronted by police.
“Then they’re like, no! Everybody get out! And all these police with automatic weapons telling us to leave. Run, run," said Hernandez.
No injuries were reported. The mall remains open while, police investigate the robbery. It is unclear what the robbers took at this time.