Lovelace, 55, landed on teenager Derrik Munoz, who was sitting on a massage chair on the mall’s ground floor, talking with his girlfriend. The 17-year-old Munoz was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was announced to be in stable condition later that day.
According to eyewitnesses, Lovelace was accompanied by two teenagers when she scaled a glass barrier and, as passersby began to scream, jumped off.
“She told her [companion] to hold her pocketbook and [then] she jumped,” said one shopper, Briteny Jones, who witnessed the suicide. “I almost fainted because I’ve never seen anyone die.”
The suicide shocked shoppers and storeowners, and the many teenagers there on spring break. Several minutes of chaos ensued before Queens Center Mall security could get control of the situation. Within minutes police arrived, cordoned off the area, and closed down that part of the mall.
“Everybody started running and screaming,” after the fall, said Raul Martinez, an employee at the Armani Exchange store who saw the jump. “It was very disturbing,” Martinez said. “Her head was literally all over the floor.”
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown surveyed the scene but his office declined to comment on the incident. (Daniel Bush)


It's Queens Magazine

Is it that the ecomomy is such that retailers don't want to give this horrific story more coverage? Why can't we learn more about what happened there, and what measusres does the mall intend to take to make sure that this does not happen again?