Over the weekend, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center played host to the National Cheerleaders Association All-Star Championship in Texas. The event is one of the largest cheerleading competitions in the world, and saw around 58,000 people flocking to downtown Dallas to watch their favorite cheerleaders perform and compete.
However, during the event on Saturday, a fight broke out between two dads at a concession stand, which led to multiple poles being knocked down. The loud noise of the poles hitting the ground sounded like gunfire, and as a result, this sent the crowds of people into a panic, as they thought that a shooter may’ve been on the loose.
The snippet of footage shared by TikTok user okiedadlife reveals the moment when a group of attendees at the cheerleading competition “heard” the loud noise and began to panic. A few seconds in, crowds of people begin screaming and shouting, with some beginning to break into a run in a bid to flee from the area. You can hear a baby begin to cry and one confused onlooker exclaim, “What is happening?” and another utter, “What is going on?” Some people duck down behind a grassy knoll and lay low on the ground for safety.
While police soon confirmed that there was no active shooter in the area, the panic was so extreme the convention center had to be evacuated by authorities as a precautionary measure. Furthermore, 10 people were reportedly injured during the chaos and required hospital treatment, per NBC News. According to Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesperson Jason Evans, the injuries attendants sustained ranged from “bumps and bruises” to “fractured extremities.” Thankfully, none of the injuries were life-threatening.
Across social media platforms, commenters are weighing in with their thoughts and reactions to the clip. One Redditor wrote, “All of these people look like they’ve never heard or even seen a gun in real life.” with another simply penning, “Mass hysteria“. Elsewhere, on TikTok, some commenters couldn’t understand why the attendees were so fearful from the sound of “poles being knocked over“, though one user who was allegedly at the event expressed, “Because panic is contagious. I was there. This was pure mayhem from sheer panic“
