New Jersey Target’s 2-ton red ball comes loose, hits moving car

Feb. 3 (UPI) — Surveillance cameras at a New Jersey Target captured the moment a truck bumped one of the iconic red concrete balls, causing it to roll into a moving car.

Parking lot surveillance footage of the Nov. 22 incident in Paramus shows a pickup truck go partially up on the curb and bump one of the store’s large red concrete balls, which are designed to prevent vehicles from crashing into the store’s doors, causing the 2-ton object to come loose.

The ball rolls right into the side of Eileen Grady’s moving Nissan Rogue. She said the car, which she has purchased only a year earlier, incurred about $3,500 in damage.

“All of sudden I hear this crash and a really loud noise,” Grady told WABC-TV.

The video shows the ball continue to roll until another driver jumps out of his car — with his dog — to stop it.

Three men roll the ball to the store’s entrance, and a Target employee places a traffic cone by the ball, but then leaves it unattended for a long enough time for a young child to climb on it.

Grady said she expected Target to cover the damage to her car.

“Target’s insurance company, Sedgwick, has denied my claim for compensation because they claim they have no responsibility in this incident,” Grady wrote in a Facebook post. “Well, first off, Target owns the big red balls, so they have insurance in the event anything happens involving them. Secondly, they are there to prevent vehicles from driving into the doors of the store & are supposed to be immobile as a security measure.”

She said police were unable to obtain the pickup truck driver’s license plate number from the video, but she believes the store should be able to identify the man because an employee recognized him from a recent purchase he made with a credit card. She said the company refused to tell her whether they made an attempt to identify the man.

WABC-TV contacted Target officials, who reiterated their refusal to pay for the damage to Grady’s car.

Grady said her next step will be to file against Target in small claims court.

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