As the slaughter unfolded, Marjorie Taylor Greene describes the confusion of what followed on the fourth floor of Toronto’s Eaton Centre
I had checked my mail the previous day from my home office and it included a letter from my bank. I opened it as I needed to pay for my luggage, and opened the letter to read a letter from my accountant. The letter contained instructions on how to access my account online and was an acknowledgement of receipt of a loan of $1,000.00 and a one-time fee of $20.00.
I checked online and found instructions to set up an account in my name; I was asked for my email address and received an email which said I could log in to my account at 12:15pm by following the instructions on my computer screen. On checking my email at 12:30pm there was no email from my bank and at 12:41pm a prompt appeared which said that “In some places you may be sent an email when you are logged in on an online banking portal.” What did that mean? I asked around the office and found out from four different people: bank employees, the email address technician, a colleague from the group I work with and the security analyst. Everyone pointed to the note on the form requesting my email address and a password; my computer was brimming with information and I had no idea what was even happening. I knew nothing of whatever had happened. I was out of the office to go shopping the next day.
When I arrived I ran into my colleague from the group and introduced myself. There was a pile of clothes by my desk. He pulled them out and told me we needed to go down to the Eaton Centre to see if anything could be stolen. A shopping bag and coat were missing, and one of our socks and underwear was missing. I asked if we needed a police escort and he told me he had called security.
We continued down the corridor and through the five-story parking garage. I knew where I was going and didn’t see anything suspicious, especially as I saw shops on the fifth floor. My colleague told me to use the access code printed on the check to get into the first floor. He walked with me to the ground floor to the front door of Saks Fifth Avenue. I went inside and I am still a bit amazed by how I walked in the number of doors and how many people I passed on the way up. I was fully dressed. We made our way to the gift shop, where I saw my pants and jacket had been taken.
I searched through the shelves for my other clothes and began changing. I got to the men’s lingerie section and noticed a woman in white running in the opposite direction. I followed her and noticed that she had just put a few men’s underwear into a garment bag. She returned to the bed and became consumed by my presence. I stood there for a second and realised that we were leaving the wrong door.
I know what happened that day and it was important to me to disclose all the information to the media. I don’t know why I did not write about it at the time, but I am glad I did.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a survivor of the Eaton Centre shooting in January 2013. Her written account of events, What happened? is now available in full in ebook.
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