Father Laughs at Terrified Daughter During Galleria Evacuation
A father who was evacuating the Galleria at Crystal Run after Sunday's gunfire was caught laughing about the incident to his crying daughter.
In a video that was uploaded to YouTube almost immediately after the mall in Middletown was locked down, a man is being scolded by his children for laughing. During the time the video was taken, it was unclear if anyone had been killed and if a shooter was still firing rounds inside the mall. Since then, we've learned that luckily no one lost their life and the shooting appears to have been an accident.
The video, filed under the category of "comedy" by the photographer, shows a family fleeing the mall. The daughter is clearly shaken by the shooting, saying "I knew something wasn't right, I felt it in my heart." While she fights away the tears her father is heard laughing. The daughter yells her father to stop while wiping her eyes.
As someone else describes hearing gunshots and seeing people running the father continues to laugh, soliciting more anger from his daughter. The video shows dozens of people escaping the mall into the parking lot, holding their friends and family members and consoling them over what they had just witnessed.
Later, while the daughter is talking with her mother on the phone about having to evacuate, the father continues to laugh about using the emergency exits.
Now, many people deal with tragedy differently, and it's possible the father in this video was just coping with his fear by turning the whole incident into a joke. Comments under the video, however, fault the man after repeatedly being yelled at by his crying daughter, especially since it wasn't clear whether people were dead or not. Also, uploading the video as "comedy" before even finding out if it was an active shooter situation made some other YouTube viewers uncomfortable.
What would you do if you were in this situation? Would you try to find the humor in it, or do you think this dad went too far?