Crime & Safety

Penn Station Shooting Scare Causes Mass Freakout, 'Stampede' (VIDEO)

It was one thing after another at Penn Station on Friday night. Here's the latest.

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MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A shooting scare Friday night at Penn Station turned out to be a false alarm, according to the NYPD — but not before causing "mass hysteria" and a "stampede" inside the station and on surrounding city blocks, all the way up to the Macy's in Herald Square, according to witnesses. (For updates on the situation at Penn and other local news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for Patch's daily newsletters and breaking news alerts in your NYC neighborhood.)

Things were already tense inside Penn Station leading up to the scare — thanks to a massive power outage that caused widespread delays across the NJ Transit, Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road systems on the eve of the Easter holiday weekend.

So when rumors started rippling through the crowd of commuters that a shooter may be loose in the station around 6:30 p.m., the scene erupted into total mayhem.

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Witness footage showed people panicking and running through the halls of Penn, spilling their food and drinks left and right and leaving suitcases, clothing and other personal belongings strewn behind — causing others to trip and fall during the stampede.

At least 13 people were injured "when self-evacuating from Penn Station" Friday night, the FDNY said.

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"Chaos at Penn Station," a guy named Brady Hamed wrote on Twitter. "Someone said they saw a gun and everyone stampeded out. I hid in a Hudson Books!"

"Mass hysteria near 34th Penn," wrote another Twitter user named Aaron Glass. "Cops are saying nothing happened. Police everywhere. Something isn't right, people are crying..."

The NYPD could not immediately provide any information on what prompted the scare. A spokesperson for the department said NYPD officers weren't involved in any response to the station Friday night — nor to the Macy's nearby, where "a continuation of what happened at Penn Station" was playing out, the spokesperson said.

According to PIX11 and ABC7, though, people inside Penn freaked out after Amtrak police Tased a man for "disobeying orders." Some may have mistaken the sound of the Taser for the sound of a gun, reports said.

Here's a video showing Amtrak police sitting on the guy they Tased:

Amtrak did not return multiple calls for information on what happened.

The company's only comment on the whole debacle came in the form of a single Tweet. It said: "Individual was subdued by Amtrak Police inside NYP and is in police custody. The station remains open."

NYPD officials planned to hold a press briefing on the scare at 8:15 p.m. Friday in front of the Old Navy outpost at 34th Street and 7th Avenue.

This is a developing story. Refresh the page for updates.

Lead image courtesy of Alexander Hardy/Twitter

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