When reports of people brandishing weapons at an Adelaide shopping centre emerged three weeks ago, centre management and police did not take any chances.

The tragedy of a knife attack at Sydney’s Westfield Bondi Junction that killed six people three months earlier was still front of mind for many Australians, including those at Westfield Marion in Adelaide’s south-west on June 23.

The multi-storey shopping centre was plunged into both chaos and lockdown, with witnesses at the time saying announcements were hard to hear and confusing messages were filling the mall.

Some shoppers sheltered inside shuttered stores while others ran to the exits.

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One witness said “casual” evacuation warnings came from cleaning staff well before centre-wide alerts and electronic signs warning of an armed offender.

Another said a fellow cinema patron stood up in the middle of the movie and announced the centre was evacuating.

Little was publicly known about the details, until police held a press conference about two hours after they were first called to the scene.

By the time police at that press conference announced that the incident was contained to an alleged armed brawl between two groups of boys, the fear of another Bondi Junction attack had already spread through some shoppers and staff at the centre.

Melbourne-based security consultant Tim Wood said confusion, uncertainty, and misinformation were often the reality in scenarios such as the lockdown at Westfield Marion.

“It is a complicated scene,” he said.

“We’re going to have people self-evacuating, people uncertain, people not hearing messages.

“Everyone’s talking and yelling.

While no-one was injured in the alleged fight, two people were hurt during the evacuation including a 77-year-old woman who suffered a fracture.

Scrutinised response

SA Police had coincidentally conducted an armed offender drill at Westfield Marion shopping centre just 11 days before the incident.

Westfield said the exercise was one of many that have been conducted every couple of years – but the company would not comment on whether it would refine its emergency messaging in the future.

American security consultant Rick Amweg specialises in response planning for active armed offenders and said preparing security guards and shop owners with training was a key part of any response.

“There’s responses that can be taught and can be practised and trained for in the event an attack like this should occur,” he said.

“When your body is in stress, it will do what it remembers, what it is trained, what it is prepared to do, and so training is a big piece of that, meaning that you need to practice that through exercises and understanding how we would react in those circumstances.”