William and Hazel Jenkins prefer to visit The Mall in Columbia during the day.

The Catonsville couple have been shopping there for decades, but recently decided to limit their visits to daylight hours after hearing about shootings in and around the mall.

William Jenkins said he doesn’t like looking over his shoulder, but the mall still has businesses he wants to patronize. And lately, the couple have noticed more police around the area.

“I still feel more secure here than I do at other malls,” Jenkins said while he and his wife stood outside of the bustling main entrance Sunday afternoon as graduating seniors grinned for photos in front of the fountains and parents watched kids play from Adirondack chairs.

Mall management and law enforcement say The Mall in Columbia is safe. Howard County Police logged fewer calls for service there for shoplifting, theft and assault in 2024 than before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Yet two fatal shootings in the past year, one inside the mall and the other at a bus stop just outside, have spooked shoppers.

The incidents created what many describe as a perception problem for a mall that opened in 1971 in the heart of one of Maryland’s most affluent counties. For decades, the mall has anchored the Columbia planned community’s downtown, serving as the center of suburban life and a popular hangout for teenagers and others.

It didn’t help when Howard County restaurateur Desmond Reilly last month blamed crime and unruly young people for his closing of three mall eateries and slammed local leaders for failing to address it. Some business owners echoed Reilly’s concerns, while other customers on social media said the restaurants’ quality had been slipping for some time and defended the mall as safe.

Local leaders and mall management say they’re taking the shootings and shopper concerns seriously and have beefed up security measures and police presence to help people feel safe.

The mall safety question is complex. While police data shows crime there remains relatively flat, incidents of violence, however isolated, tend to fuel public pressure for action.

Howard County Executive Calvin Ball said he’s acutely aware of that pressure.

“When you put things in perspective, Howard County is a safe place,” said Ball, a Democrat. “That doesn’t mean zero crime. That means that we still have work to do.”

Public perception also carries real consequences for the businesses that rely on shoppers walking through the door. Reilly’s comments about the mall frustrated management and some residents and people who shop at the mall, and revived news coverage of past security issues involving young people.

Bad behavior by a few often results in consequences for all. Escort policies for people under 18 have become standard at many shopping malls, effectively shrinking the unsupervised space available for teens even as mental health issues rise. The Mall in Columbia’s landlord, Brookfield Properties, enacted an escort policy there in 2023 following reports of unruly behavior directed at workers and shoppers.

“It’s a really, really last resort decision,” said Lindsay Kahn, a Brookfield spokeswoman. “We know that not everyone is rowdy.”

Kahn called Reilly’s comments “misleading,” saying that the restaurant group had not been paying rent. That might suggest other problems, but Reilly did not respond to a request for comment.

She said she was heartened to see community members defend the mall.

Arinze Ifekauche of Oakland Mills, who is running for Howard County Council, suggested in a letter to The Banner that Reilly’s argument resulted in unfair press for Columbia and did not “pass the smell test.” Ifekauche is deputy director of communications and legislative affairs in the Gov. Wes Moore’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy.

Others, however, remember 2024 as the year when someone shot and killed 17-year-old Angelo Little in a bathroom hallway near the food court early on a Saturday evening, causing a stampede toward the exits. Investigators said they believed the shooting was targeted, not random, but took 10 months to track down the teenager they believe shot him. Authorities arrested the 18-year-old last week in New York.

Then in February, 15-year-old Blake McCray and 16-year-old Michael Robertson were fatally shot near a bus stop outside of the mall’s Lidl grocery store just before 6 p.m. Police also called that shooting targeted and quickly arrested an 18-year-old, who’s scheduled for trial in January.

The back-to-back shootings galvanized leaders across county government to take swift action.

Howard County Police Chief Gregory Der rolled out a crime reduction plan for the downtown area within days and later created a permanent police unit for the area around the mall, Lake Kittamaqundi and the Merriweather District. Police added around-the-clock patrols focused on the mall and planned to staff a satellite office inside it.

Several shoppers approached Sunday by The Banner said they feel perfectly safe at the mall and that bad things can happen anywhere. However, following a meal at The Cheesecake Factory, Glen Burnie resident Marcus Smith said some measures send the opposite message and “give kind of a post-9/11 vibe.”

He pointed to signs throughout the building reminding people of the parental guidance policy and asking them to say something if they see something.

Smith said he’s suspicious of shoppers who speak languages other than English. He doesn’t trust the word of politicians or commercial property owners, who have a financial incentive to say a place is safe.

Howard State’s Attorney Rich Gibson, who’s personally trying one of the shooting cases, said the violence is illustrative of what his office often sees in juvenile cases.

The overall number of crimes committed by young people in the county is trending down, he said. However, the charges filed against young people seem more egregious than 15 years ago.

In a way, Gibson said, a violent crime at the mall lands with the public much like an airplane crash.

“Newsworthy and horrible,” he said, “but most airplanes get people to and from their destination safely.”

Saying that “not everything is easily quantifiable,” Ball said any crime is one too many.

Seeking what he called a “win-win” solution to bring the community and small businesses together, Ball signed an executive order in March establishing a 27-member Youth Engagement Strategy council and tasked the group with recommending strategies by Dec. 1 to prevent youth violence and increase positive opportunities for young people.

Anxiety over unsupervised teenagers who flock to malls, carnivals and other public spaces, like Baltimore’s waterfront, is nothing new. Parents and civic leaders have long fretted about keeping teens out of trouble, sometimes favoring solutions that keep them busy instead. At times, the debates have devolved into racism or failed to include the teens themselves in developing solutions.

“Want to banish the phrase ‘There’s nothing to do’ from your child’s vocabulary? Here’s a solution you’ll both love,” boasts the website for the Columbia Association’s Youth and Teen Center at The Barn, which has been a fixture since 1982.

The center in Oakland Mills offers robust programming and events for young people with some supervision. The homeowners association added a new “Teen Summer Kickback“ event this year at the Columbia lakefront.

Some teens who frequent The Barn say they know what it’s like to have nothing to do.

“It gets really boring,” said Chloe, a 16-year-old member of the center’s teen advisory committee, which helps plan activities. She declined to give her last name citing concerns for her well-being.

Chloe recently got a job at the mall, which comes with the perk of being able to enter when the parental guidance policy is in effect.

To the sophomore, the policy is more of an inconvenience than a limit. And she doesn’t mind adult supervision at The Barn.

“It’s about being independent,” she said. “It’s not about who is there watching you. It’s about wanting to have space to be me, by myself with my friends.”

Chloe said young people in her circle talked about the mall shootings for a few days, but didn’t dwell on them like some adults. She understands their concerns, but would rather talk about fun things like boys, food or hair.

“It’s important to learn all these stories and learn the history behind them,” she said of the incidents. “But it’s just as important to learn to move on from them.”

This article has been updated to identify Arinze Ifekauche, who is deputy director of communications and legislative affairs in the Gov. Wes Moore’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy. Ifekauche also is running for Howard County Council.