Garden State Plaza Gunman Remembered As Kind, Withdrawn

Update: Prosecutor: Weapon Used In Garden State Plaza Gunfire Was Confiscated, Returned

By Devin McGinley 

Shocked acquaintances of the Teaneck man authorities said opened fire Monday night at the Garden State Plaza before killing himself described the 20-year-old as soft spoken and kind, but withdrawn in the days leading up to his public suicide.

Employees at Victor’s Pizza, where Richard Shoop worked for three years, said the Teaneck High School graduate was hardworking and reliable, until he mysteriously stopped showing up for work last weekend.

Andres Quinones, who met Shoop through the pizzeria three years ago and became a friend outside of work, said they had plans to hang out last Friday night, but Shoop never returned his calls.

“He stopped responding to people’s phone calls, didn’t show up to work for a while,” he said.

It was uncharacteristic of Shoop, he said, who was popular among his friends and showed no interest in violence, only cars and his motorcycle.

“He had a lot of friends. Everybody liked him, all the girls liked him,” Quinones said. “He was a happy guy, always smiling.”

Robert Gega, a manager at Victor’s, also said Shoop recently stopped showing up for work and didn’t return calls.

"We didn't know what was going on, he just didn't show up," said Gega. “He was a great worker."

Shoop made an impression even beyond his friends, employees at a Cedar Lane grocery store nearby the pizzeria said.

“Every time I went in there I’d tell my coworkers, ‘You have to meet this guy, ‘cause he’s the most pleasant person,’” said Millicent Watson-Marshall, an employee at the Best Glatt market. “He wasn’t your typical emergent teen, he had no attitude. He was always pleasant, always patient.”

After asking about her children last summer, she remembered, he gave her bowling tickets to an alley nearby her Teaneck home.

For many who knew Shoop, hearing his name in news reports as the details of the gunshots at the mall emerged came as a shock. But as surprising as the events were to those who knew him, they were not surprised that nobody was injured when authorities say he fired at least six rounds inside the mall.

Multiple witnesses at the massive shopping center described Shoop, clad in a motorcycle helmet and wearing all black, walk right by them, firing into the air.

An FBI SWAT team found Shoop in a storage area dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound around 3:20 a.m., six hours after the first shots rang out on the mall’s second floor.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli has said Shoop apparently went to the mall to kill himself and there was no sign he was gunning for patrons. 

“Everybody’s at a loss for words as for what happened,” Watson-Marshall said. “I don’t care what anyone says. From my encounters with him what I want to remember is this pleasant person that I knew.”