Why We Can't Actually Make Shopping Malls Impervious to Terror Attacks

In the wake of the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in which Somali terrorists have already killed at least 60 people, security experts are once again talking about how to keep malls safe. If the discussion sounds familiar, it's because we've had it before. The last time was in December 2007, when 19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed nine people (himself included) and injured five at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska.

Hawkins was a mentally ill teenager, not a terrorist, but his rampage nevertheless inspired news stories about terrorist strikes and weak shopping mall security, stories very similar to the one we're starting to see now in the wake of the Nairobi massacre. After the 2007 Westroads shooting, terrorism experts talked about shopping malls as "soft targets," or "places where large groups congregate and that are difficult to secure." Things haven't changed much in the intervening years. Reuters reports this week that "one of the major concerns for counter-terrorism officials is that there could be imitators of this type of 'soft target' attack."