Just four days before five thousand people would gather in Princeton to protest gun violence, a shooter ran into the Panera Bread restaurant on Nassau Street and barricaded himself in.
Patrons and employees fled to safety but what followed was a four and a half hour stand-off with police during which time negotiators tried, unsuccessfully, to talk the man down.
He was shot by the police and pronounced dead at the scene. No one else was injured.
Authorities later identified the man as a Lawrenceville, NJ resident, 56-year-old Scott Mielentz, an Army veteran and former IT worker who filed for disability benefits in 2010. There he described suffering of anxiety, depression and keeping himself away from social situations according to an article published by nj.com.
Janeth Paz, who works at the State Farm located above the Panera, was caught in the events.
She told The VOICE, “You don’t expect it to happen to you, so you’re like, you don’t even know what to feel, you’re just like oh my God. I didn’t say bye to my mom, I didn’t say bye to my kids, I was like ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die.’”
While Princeton University, which is across Nassau Street from the Panera where Mielentz holed up, was on spring break, the main thoroughfare was closed down all day, several University buildings were evacuated and Princeton High School (PHS) was placed on a shelter in place lockdown that lasted from mid-morning through to the end of the day.
Students from the school say that despite the shelter in place they were not particularly worried.
Ninth-grader Hugo Balavoine told The VOICE, “Everyone was kind of joking about it, honestly. I wasn’t worried. It wasn’t like the Panera guy was going to walk over here.”
Asked to describe his experience, ninth-grader Orie Bolitho said: “Nobody really knew what was happening in my class. At first I thought it was something bigger. The vibe around school was kind of gloomy and weird; it didn’t really feel right.”
In the wake of the Parkland, FL shooting last month, PHS students and faculty alike shared strong views on guns in schools.
Elizabeth Sullivan-Crowley, a PHS freshman, said of the recent suggestion by the president that the way to stop gun violence in schools is to arm teachers, “I think it’s a bad idea and not a very helpful way to end gun violence by adding more guns to these scenarios.”
Paz said, “My sister said ‘It’s Princeton, how does this happen in Princeton?’”
Mielentz is survived by a wife and two children.
The restaurant is closed for the time being. Multiple signs from people who attended the March For Our Lives now cover the windows and doors with messages including, “Protect kids, not guns” and “#Enough.”
