Survivors of Thailand mass shooting tracked gunman via CCTV footage

The survivors of the most fatal shooting spree in a Thailand mall tracked the movements of the gunman through the CCTV cameras. The shoppers at Terminal 21 reportedly jammed cubicle doors against the entrance to keep out the Thai soldier with a grudge who killed 26 people and wounded 57 before he was fatally shot inside the mall on February 9. The survivors of the 'unprecedented' incident on February 9 had traced the movements of the gunman through fragments of the CCTV passed on by friends who were outside the mall. 

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According to international reports, a 33-year-old music teacher and his wife who was barricaded in the women's toilet with a few dozen others made frantic calls to friends, family, police officers, mall workers, and nurses. He also told an international news agency that their friend who works at the mall was communicating with a guy in the CCTV control room and updated the people inside the mall about the location of the gunman. It was these details which were shared through messaging apps which might have saved at least 20-30 lives. 

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'Everyone was terrified'

However, in the swirl of information from the outside, dread had gripped the people hiding inside cupboards, storerooms, and toilets across the mega-mall. The teacher reportedly said that 'everyone was terrified and lost'. The amount of information which was going around was huge which made people unsure of which source to believe in. For several hours, the Thai soldier reportedly stalked concourses, the glass-fronted windows of the multi-level mall destroyed with bullet holes. 

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Sergeant-Major Jakrapanth Thomma with an unknown grudge had already killed several people on his way to the mall, which is the largest shopping centre and was crowded on the first day of the long weekend. He swaggered through the mall with a machine gun slung over his shoulder, helmet on, and was in full combat gear as seen in the CCTV cameras. By the end of the fatal shooting, 27 people were dead including himself leaving several in critical condition. 

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(With agency inputs)