A crowd of shoppers fled on foot in a parking lot when they spotted a bear heading in their direction. Footage of the incident in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, was taken on July 18 by Lara Bynum, who was on the balcony of her home at the time. The woman heard people screaming and began recording video of the bear as it walked through the parking lot like it owned the place.
Commenters don’t think the bear was a threat
In the 41-second video revealed by Storyful (via WLVT), more than a dozen shoppers strolling through a parking lot noticed a bear closing in on them, forcing them to flee as fast as they could. One person could be seen hiding behind a car, another dashed into the back of a store entrance, while most hurried to their vehicles.
As the bear weaved through the parked cars, one man in an orange outfit next to a white van attempted to film the animal as it walked toward him. Bynum began shouting for him to get into the car multiple times.
“I was very nervous for all of the people running through the parking lot,” she recalled. “Especially the guy in the orange outfit because he was not getting in the van with the rest of his group. He kept trying to take a picture of the bear up close.”
Several seconds later, the man decided that this wasn’t the best time to risk his life and tucked himself near the van’s doors. The bear continued to pace through the lot as the woman alerted other people to the danger.
Commenters on the video, however, weren’t surprised by the bear encounter and were more surprised by the crowd’s reaction. “He ain’t chasing,” one wrote, “Why is everyone acting like he has a gun?”
Another pointed out that this happened in Gatlinburg, which is well known for bears: “But it’s Gatlinburg. Black bear is like this is my neighborhood bro just trying to get from point A to point B and everybody’s making it weird.”
Indeed, Gatlinburg is home to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which National Geographic calls “one of the last remaining places in the eastern United States where [black bears] can be found in the wild.” That’s why some commenters say the bear was merely walking around in what was once its natural habitat.
