Man shot at Universal Orlando's parking lot

[BarryH]

This is the first time I've heard of anyone shot at Universal...

 

Source: http://www.local6.com/news/10171949/detail.html

 

Man Shot In Universal Studios Parking Garage

 

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A 28-year-old man was charged with attempted murder in connection with the shooting of another man during an argument in a Universal Studios parking garage.

 

Officers said two groups of people became involved in an altercation in the Jurassic Park parking garage at about 2:30 a.m. Friday.

 

During the fight, someone pulled out a gun and shot Norman Sierra in the stomach, police said.

 

Sierra was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center and remains in critical condition.

 

The four people stopped by police allegedly drove off after the shooting, but a witness wrote down their vehicle's tag number.

 

Witnesses identified Eric Audifre as the shooter and police interviewed him. After questioning, Audifre was charged with attempted murder.

 

Police said the gun was recovered and was determined to be stolen.

 

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

[Wes]

2:30am on a Friday night means it was probably guests from Halloween Horror Nights. Hmm, SHOCKING! I wonder if they did a blood alcohol content test on them.

[SharkTums]

Yet another reason to AVOID HHN on Peak Nights like the plague!!!!

 

I was very disappointed to not see any drunk, yelling, or fighting people on our calm Thursday!

[cfc]

^There were a few drunken wingnuts sitting in the rear of my car on Mummy that night, Elissa, but they weren't too bad once the ride got going.

 

One of the funniest sights was the cast member holding the flashlight on a puddle of puke after the lagoon show. (I appreciated his alerting all passers by.)

[Robgraves]

I really wish UO would make the tough decision that USH did and cut alcohol sales...

 

I had some wanna be thug who was wasted at 6:15 behind me in line for scarepy a few weeks back trying to pick a fight with whoever was near... mostly me.... by the end of the night i had turned to my wife and said.. ' this is gonna be the year somebody gets shot. It is becoming as bad as LA here now."

 

It is a shame I had to be right.

 

I think that this years HHN needs to be a lesson to UO in many ways.

While overall it was a good event it had some major issues that need addressed.

 

#1: Violence- Lots of fights this year.. quite a few scareactors getting attacked by guests, including some small females getting punched out by large manly men..... even with the large police presence and metal detectors... this year was like a time bomb. I thought i was at SFMM during some parts of the night.

 

#2 Crowds- HHN has offically gotten too big for its britches. I have been going to HHN every year since the original Fright Nights (minus the years i was in Los Angeles) And this year was the worse... Part of it being poor crowd flow by placing things in too close proximity. Either they have to go back to limited tickets and call a sell out a sell out, or possibly expand to both parks... and not do it like 2004... also more scarezones. Also queues that didnt take you out of the park and down to the road....

 

#3: Alcohol: this one relates to the violence..... as they go hand in hand. The underage drinking is pretty rough this year as well... The crowds + alcohol lead to violence as well... people get impaitent, people get restless, people get irritible, people get drunk... and well... people get violent.

 

With the amount of "thugs" that i saw at this years even it might be a good idea to put up some of those signs saying that if your wearing certain things, or colours, you wre not allowed in the park? Having a shirt advertises that you sell drugs.... that should be a "sorry, you cant come in... but you did give this lovely officer probable cause to search you very invasively."

 

I miss the days when you saw more Goth kids running around because they are mostly harmless and enjoy the show... they dont punch out scareactors and act all tough all the time. Most the people i know who DID go this year said that the rest of the crowd kept them from wanting to come back because they were afraid of exactly this happening.

 

I hope UO managment thinks long and hard over the safety of their guests and employees about next year. and choose Safety over Profits.

It seems to not have hurt USH too bad, though they initally acted too harshly by stopping the event all together thinking that people wouldnt come without alcohol... seems they were wrong, and UO can learn from that example.

[CoasterEricHP]

That's the first I heard of that too. Probably a result of HHN and alcohol Im sure... who knows.

 

However, I have a lot of friends that work every night at Horror Nights and I haven't heard any stories other than the usual fights and stupid situtations. Definately nothing about scareactors getting beaten down.

 

They have started opening Marvel at IOA to try and spread out the crowds a little bit.

 

But yeah.. avoid peak nights..

Eric

[Robgraves]

That's the first I heard of that too. Probably a result of HHN and alcohol Im sure... who knows.

 

However, I have a lot of friends that work every night at Horror Nights and I haven't heard any stories other than the usual fights and stupid situtations. Definately nothing about scareactors getting beaten down.

 

 

there were quite a few discussions about it on the Vault. a thread titled "Violent HHN Lately?, Violence at HHN." from two weeks back was pretty detailed on some of the many incidents. Two female scareactors got punched as of the 15th... one in psychopath and one in DOT.

[BarryH]

Actually, I heard the people involved in the shooting were at a movie, not HHN.

[Robgraves]

what i have heard was that the inital altercation occured in citywalk in front of the theater... then the man got his gun from his car and shot the victim...

 

so it is still likely they were hhn guests.

[BarryH]

Still, I think it's an ultra-rare circumstance for a shooting to occur at a theme park. Like I said, I've never heard of anyone being shot at Universal. This could be a once in a blue moon thing. Based on people's reactions, it's the end of the world and beer is the root of all evil.

[Jew]

Not selling booze isn't going to stop people from getting trashed. It'll help, but definitely not elimate it. Halloween events just attract the wrong crowd.

 

-Joey "drives through a KBF guest parking lot filled with empty booze boxes/cans/bottles/etc every night" Mandel

[jarmor]

what i have heard was that the inital altercation occured in citywalk in front of the theater... then the man got his gun from his car and shot the victim...

 

so it is still likely they were hhn guests.

 

But it's likely they were not. I don't see how beer or boo's should be the "reason" why people do things. People use the fact that "I was drunk" as an excuse as to why they do particular things. A true state of drunkness is when you dont remember what happen the night before not when you get the balls to slap someone or talk smack because you feel you can blame it on being drunk.

 

Jarvis "been drunk plenty of times and never did anything stupid" Morant

[BarryH]

When the news popped up on different message boards, people were so quick to say that HHN and beer caused the shooting. I'm sure beer didn't cause people to be stupid. Do you expect a drunk guy to even shoot straight?

[Wes]

^ If they're stupid to begin with, beer isn't going to make things any better.

[Hattuchili]

When I was there with the gang, I havn´t seen a lot of drunken people in the park! Or I was more looking for all the decoration and the scary parts! Anyway, it is really bad that that happened!

 

--Sören

[ginzo]

When the news popped up on different message boards, people were so quick to say that HHN and beer caused the shooting. I'm sure beer didn't cause people to be stupid. Do you expect a drunk guy to even shoot straight?

 

Well, of course the beer didn't make them stupid. They were stupid to begin with. But, it's no big secret that people do incredibly dumb things under the influence of alcohol, that they wouldn't do sober. Why do you think there are so many bar fights?

 

"Do they understand how most of what happens is people being drunk and stupid and trying to find something else to blame besides that makes their lives totally fuck3d? No, they don’t."

 

-Al Swearengen

 

I went to HHN at UO on Friday the 13th, had a great time, and there was absolutely no trouble. One of the highlights of the evening was some drunken frat boys trading insults with the T2 lady when she was doing the intro. She actually trash talked back. It was great.

[DenDen]

I really wish UO would make the tough decision that USH did and cut alcohol sales...

 

 

I have to agree with this one, alcohol shouldn't be served in amusement parks anyway, it's pointless. (Let the hate mail begin.)

 

Unfortunately, Orlando has the stigma of competing with Las Vegas for the "Most visited tourist attraction in the country" title, and for some reason, Orlando business feels that alcoholics are the majority of spending tourists. But they have it wrong, it's the smokers that spend more money.

[ginzo]

I really wish UO would make the tough decision that USH did and cut alcohol sales...

 

 

I have to agree with this one, alcohol shouldn't be served in amusement parks anyway, it's pointless. (Let the hate mail begin.)

 

Unfortunately, Orlando has the stigma of competing with Las Vegas for the "Most visited tourist attraction in the country" title, and for some reason, Orlando business feels that alcoholics are the majority of spending tourists. But they have it wrong, it's the smokers that spend more money.

 

Alcoholics and smokers are quite often the same people.

 

BGT sells booze at Howl-o-Scream. Why don't they have as many problems? Maybe it's the smaller scale of their event, and everything is all spread out. HHN at UO seemed very packed in when I went.

 

Drunken idiots packed into small space = trouble

 

Isn't idiot watching part of the fun?

[Satoshi]

what's been happenin' in the US theme parks lately yeah coz we

got to run into these bad deeds like stealin' or violation in this

couple o'l years! when some bad people commit crimes

in our park stayin' time they gotta make that fun stay more sad

and wanna escape from the park! that's too scary to have fun!

we can't let people play in lotsa danger place that weapons spread

'round so the US park should check security more!

[ginzo]

what's been happenin' in the US theme parks lately yeah coz we

got to run into these bad deeds like stealin' or violation in this

couple o'l years! when some bad people commit crimes

in our park stayin' time they gotta make that fun stay more sad

and wanna escape from the park! that's too scary to have fun!

we can't let people play in lotsa danger place that weapons spread

'round so the US park should check security more!

 

There already is pretty stiff security at HHN. They search you when you come in. However, the search happens as you go into the park, not before you park. They don't search cars, nor are they allowed to. The parking lot is kinda a grey area. There was a shooting at SFOG this year, which also occured outside the park itself.

 

There's not much they can do about it. There's a limitless supply of idiots out there.

[CoasterEricHP]

BGT is a huge park compared to USF and they are probably squeezing in the same amount of people! Plus like was mentioned earlier the houses at HHNs are all close to each other.. on one side you have Bill and Ted, the ghetto tent houses, and Dungeon.. and then the soundstage houses all massed together on the other side.

 

I just dont think USF.. or even IOA alone are large enough for the amount of people they are putting in. I'll be surprised if next year they dont have at least half of the other park open for people to go and get away from the craziness. Even if they dont have any houses or scare zones. (then staffing is a whole new issue to deal with)

 

As far as alcohol goes.. Alcohol = big bucks. Unfortunately that's the bottom line.

 

Eric

[Gnome]

^ not quite as far as attendence goes

http://www.coastergrotto.com/theme-park-attendance.jsp

[Wes]

I don't see why Universal (or ANY park) can't set up a system that promotes responsible drinking.

1. You go a kiosk set up in the park with a valid photo ID.

2. You are printed out a "Drinking Card" with a barcode that allows a maximum of 3 drinks.

3. When you purchase a drink, you must show the photo ID with the drinking card. The card's barcode is then scanned.

4. After three drinks, it will not allow you to buy any more drinks.

 

I know there's loopholes in the system (a friend could buy you a drink etc) but it's much better than the "Drink as much as you want and we'll just act like we don't think it's a problem" mindset.

[pianojohn]

I went on Sunday, and the crowd was pretty rowdy there too. I also agree that they need to limit the amount of alcohol sales during an event such as this since people are already in a heightened state, and the addition of alcohol merely fuels the fire.

 

It was also disconcerting walking through the metal detector at the front of the park with my hands in the air. Hmm...I felt like a criminal, and I didn't even do anything.

 

Just my two cents...

[Gnome]

^ that doesn't bother me. They can't pick from the crowd who the criminals are, so just scan them all. They also cuts out the whole "racially profiling" thing. If everyone has to do it then no one can argue.