TEXAS: If You Hear ‘Code Brown’ While Shopping Leave Immediately & Call 911

Christmas shopping season is beginning to ramp up and shoppers from Athens, Texas to El Paso to Houston need to be aware of their surroundings at all times. Doing so could change the outcome if you hear a special announcement made inside a store.

You could be out making the weekly grocery run in Ft. Worth, Texas, or casually shopping at a mall in Longview and hear a message come across the store's intercom system that could have a major impact on your life.

Oftentimes it's an ordinary mundane message like 'Manager on duty call 372, manager on duty call 372' or 'I need Christmas tree box C, like in Christmas cookies brought to register 4 please'.

Those announcements can be annoying to customers, but there are certain messages and phrases that employees are keenly listening for and you might want to be alert to them too.

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Major retailers like Target and Walmart have a system in place to alert their employees of certain situations that may be taking place in the store during business hours.

Years ago Walmart, adopted the phrase 'Code Adam'. That code indicates that there is a missing child in their store. Exits to the building are secured while employees begin searching the store for the missing child.

Over the years retail outlets have developed a series of code colors to communicate with their employees that there is an issue happening in the store without alerting customers to what's happening.

When employees hear these codes they can take appropriate action, whether it's alerting them of some kind of spill, a shoplifting incident, a fire, or a more serious event like an active shooter or hostage situation happening in the store.

Knowing a little bit about these codes and what they mean could help save your life too.