NOTE: WCBS and WNYW share choppers therefore Joe Beirmann reports for both stations.
What began as a regular night of news coverage for all local New York stations quickly developed into a “BREAKING NEWS” situation. Around 9:19PM EST a shooter walked into the Garden State Plaza Mall and began shooting. WNYW was the first local station to break in with coverage shorty after the beginning of the 10PM newscast around 10:08EST. FOX5 had first live arial pictures of the situation unfolding from Joe Biermann in SkyFoxHD. Shorty after this WPIX came back from a commercial break with a "Breaking News” alert and informed viewers that PIX11 reporter Jay Dow was en-route to the scene. As time quickly passed WABC broke into their regular Monday night programing around 10:25 EST with Bill Ritter anchoring from the anchor desk. Eyewitness News reporter Josh Einiger was on scene. As coverage continued on WABC reporter Carolina Leid was also on scene interviewing Eyewitness’s. Soon after that WABC had extensive technical problems establishing audio and video connections with reporters on scene so at 10:41 EST they returned to regular programing. Minutes later as WNYW and WPIX continued their coverage around 10:50 EST WNBC broke into their regularly scheduled programming with special coverage of the mall shooting. Ground reports on WNBC came from reporter Ida Siegal along with arial coverage from Dennis Protsko in Chopper4. As we came upon 11:00 PM EST WCBS began their coverage with their 11:00PM newscast, WNBC, WNYW, and WPIX continued their ongoing coverage, and WABC re-joined with their edition of Eyewitness News at 11. WCBSs late breaking coverage included reports from CBS2 reporters Tracee Carrasco, Dave Carlin, and Jessica Schneider. Arial pictures form Joe Biermann in Chopper2HD. The newscast also included an analysis of the situation from CBSNews correspondent John Miller who joined Maurice and Kristine at the anchor desk in Studio46. Over on WNYW as coverage continued ground reports came from Linda Schmidt and Joe Waldman. Bill Ritter and Sandra Bookman anchored Eyewitness News at 11 which included reports from Josh Einiger, Carolina Leid, Lucy Yang, and Jim Dolan. Bill Ritter mentioned earlier in the coverage that NewsCopter7 was en-route to the scene, but no arial reports were given on WABC as the chopper only arrived as they signed off at 11:35PM EST. At the same time as WABCs sign off WCBS and WNBC also signed off to go forward with their normally scheduled network programming. With this WNYW and WPIX were the only two stations left on air, both of which were on long after their scheduled sign-off times. As developments slowed down WNYW wrapped up their coverage with a final report from Joel Waldman live at the mall in Paramus. Steve Lacy and Dari Alexander officially signed off at 11:42 PM EST. Leaving WPIX to take on viewers who wanted to watch live coverage for developments. Tamsen Fadal and Scott Stanford continued their live coverage through midnight with live reports from Jay Dow and Ann Mercogliano. WPIX held out their coverage as they were awaiting a press conference from officials, but as 1:00 AM EST approached Tamsen and Scott signed off after three full hours of coverage. As of 2:00AM EST developments were ongoing, the suspect is still at large, reporters are still awaiting a press conference outside the mall in Paramus, and reports stated that a residence in Teaneck NJ had been raided in connection with the shooting. As the morning presses on viewers can expect full coverage of the events on all stations.