Police said they have no evidence that gunshots were fired at Town Center at Boca Raton on Sunday. The injured man, who police originally thought had been shot, hit his head on a door in the rush out of the mall.

BOCA RATON — A popping balloon — not the shooting rampage many feared — sparked the panic and hourslong lockdown Sunday at Town Center at Boca Raton, city police said Tuesday.

After an "extensive investigation," police said they found surveillance-camera video that showed a janitor pushing a garbage cart through the mall's food court at about 3 that afternoon.

The cart rolled over a balloon and dragged it. The janitor told police he popped the balloon.

The video, which police did not release publicly Tuesday, reportedly shows people visibly reacting to the loud noise, although panic does not appear to set in until a few minutes later.

Boca Raton police already were at the mall when multiple reports of shots fired in the food court began being called in to dispatchers.

Shortly afterward, an officer found 30-year-old Julus Augustin bleeding from his head in the parking lot near the Bloomingdale’s department store. The Deerfield Beach resident was in and out of consciousness and primarily spoke Creole, so the officer did not immediately know how Augustin had been injured, police said.

The officer put him in a patrol car and drove him to fire rescue crews who then took him to Delray Medical Center.

Surveillance video, as well as blood and hair found at the scene, helped police determine that Augustin hit his head on the pushbar of a door in the rush of mallgoers, not in a shooting as initially reported.

Augustin said Tuesday evening that he had gone to the Express store in the mall to pay a credit card bill when he heard a commotion. During a telephone interview with The Palm Beach Palm Beach Post, Augustin’s girlfriend, Marie Jean, translated questions into Creole.

“He saw everybody running and he ran, too,” Jean said. “When he ran, he tried to go outside and he felt something hurting him. He was bleeding and after that, he doesn’t remember anything.”

“I lost my consciousness,” Augustin said, speaking in English.

He was taken to Delray Medical Center, where he was treated for a significant gash near the top of his head and received multiple staples. Augustin said Tuesday that he was still experiencing a headache and pain in his left shoulder.

Police said Tuesday that several other people sustained minor injuries while evacuating Town Center, which was locked down for about six hours Sunday, with police giving the "all clear" signal at about 9:30 p.m.

“The extensive investigation did not reveal that any crime occurred. There was no evidence that a weapon had been used,” the department’s statement said.

The statement, issued at about noon Tuesday, broke more than 36 hours of silence following the incident, which drew national headlines in the wake of mass shootings across the nation.

The mall, on Glades Road west of Interstate 95, is about 15 miles northeast of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 17 people were killed and 17 others wounded in a mass shooting on Feb. 14, 2018.

Town Center reopened on schedule at 10 a.m. Monday, even after patrons returned there late Sunday to retrieve their belongings, and was open for its regular hours, closing at 9 p.m.

Private security and even city police officers were prominent across the property, and several patrons said they would not let fear keep them from their daily routines.

“This stuff is happening all over the world,” said Gary Strauch, 66, of Boca Raton, who came to the mall Monday for coffee and window-shopping. “I’m not going to let it stop me from going about my life.”

Multiple law-enforcement and public safety agencies helped Boca Raton police secure the Town Center site on Sunday.

SWAT teams with the Palm Beach and Broward sheriff’s offices, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach police and the FBI aided Boca police that afternoon. Officers with the Florida Atlantic University Police Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded as well.