CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A pair of shopping scares at two popular malls put families across the Carolinas on edge over the weekend.
On Saturday, parts of SouthPark Mall were placed on lockdown after a suspicious package was found at Nordstrom. In the same night in South Carolina, police responded to a chaotic scene after shots were fired at Greenwood Mall.
No one was hurt in either of the incidents. Police are still searching for at least four people in connection with the Greenwood Mall shooting.
The "suspicious item" that put shoppers in Charlotte into a panic and frenzy was later identified as a cooler containing a metal pot. Although Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police ultimately declared the cooler and metal pot safe, an employee with SouthPark Mall told NBC Charlotte the mall isn't ready to deal with safety problems.
The employee reached out to NBC Charlotte's Xavier Walton during Saturday's suspicious package investigation, asking him if he knew anything about the incident because the employee's daughter was at the mall.
"She was scared," the employee, who asked to not be identified, told Walton. "She was panicky."
The employee said the mall could have handled the situation much better.
"They should have evacuated the whole mall because they didn't know what they were dealing with," she said. "You have to be that way now in today's times. People are crazy and anything can happen anywhere we go and I think we should prepare."
CMPD's crime map reveals that nearly 200 police reports have been filed within a mile of SouthPark Mall since June 1. That includes a rash of break-ins last month.
Police are telling shoppers to always be mindful of where the nearest exits are.
"Doesn't matter where you're at," said CMPD officer Jonathan Frisk. "You have to know your surroundings, you have to know exactly where you're at so if something like that does happen, you can find the closest exit and get out of there."
Simon Property Group, the company that owns SouthPark Mall sent NBC Charlotte a statement in part:
SouthPark is committed to providing a safe and quality environment to all our shoppers and mall employees. Our management, security and retailers take any reports of suspicious objects in and around our property seriously.
NBC Charlotte showed the full statement to the employee but she said those measures are not nearly enough. The employee told NBC Charlotte she plans to press this issue until the mall's security improves.