While they were running video of people there talking on their cell phones...
I'm more inclined to believe that the people on the street holding phones to their ears were talking on them than that they were all just walking around pretending to talk on their phones.
It took about an hour before they decided to shut the cell towers down in the neighborhood. You may be seeing people on cell phones before that or outside the affected area. It was not a wide are of cell tower shutdown. anyways, believe what you want. It's a free country for now.