For Teenager Trapped in Pier Drama, a Night of Fear

Fifteen-year-old Brittney Thompson will never look the same way at Gun Blade or Street Fighter 2 or any other popular video shooter games after Tuesday’s visit to the arcade.

The Palms teenager narrowly escaped when a real-life shooter burst into the Playland Arcade at the Santa Monica Pier, firing a gun and grabbing hostages.

Brittney was having her picture taken in an arcade photo booth when the shots rang out.

She didn’t wait for her pictures.

“I ducked down when he started shooting,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’ ”

Suddenly, police opened a door near the photo booth. “I just did what was best,” Brittney said. “I kicked off my shoes and ducked down and ran.”

From outside the arcade Brittney could hear her mother, Lorna Cass, screaming her name.

Cass was one of about 15 hostages being held at gunpoint among the rows of electronic video games. Also among them was Brittney’s 6-year-old brother, Tyler Hensly.

Late Monday evening it had been Cass who urged the children to come with her to the pier for some pre-Fourth of July excitement. It took some convincing to get the children to come along.

“She said it would be fun, that we could play arcade games,” Brittney said.

It became clear this was no game when Santa Monica police urgently moved Brittney and passersby away from the arcade and toward the end of the pier. A few minutes later, the girl was able to walk down stairs to the beach. Eventually, she made her way to a parking lot, where an increasingly frantic crowd was waiting to be reunited with the hostages and about 100 others at the end of the pier who were unable to leave.

Robin Herron, a Los Angeles woman who had come to pick up a niece and nephew who work at food stands on the pier, saw the shivering girl standing alone and looking dazed.

“She was all by herself. She didn’t have nobody. She was scared and was trying to get back where her mother and brother was,” Herron said.

Herron led Brittney to her car, which was parked on Ocean Avenue above the pier. She gave the girl a blanket for warmth. The ordeal had drained Brittney, who talked softly about being worried about her mother and brother.

As the hostage drama continued, Brittney called her grandmother to tell her she was safe. That’s when she learned that her mother and brother were still alive: The gunman had let them call home to say they were unharmed.

Cass and Tyler were among the first hostages to be released. They walked out of the arcade about three hours before the gunman--identified by police as 25-year-old Baldwin Park murder suspect Oswaldo Amezcua--surrendered at 6:40 a.m.

During the arcade ordeal, Brittney’s young brother wondered if the drama was virtual reality.

“My brother was asking if this was real or fake?” Brittney said after being reunited with Cass and Tyler. “He thought it was a movie or something.”