Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A Pennsylvania shopping mall was forced to close its doors Friday after hundreds of teenagers showed up and several fights broke out.
It was an ugly, chaotic scene at the Monroeville mall friday night after swarms of teenage girls, kicked and punched other girls in rampant fights throughout the mall.
Monroeville Mayor Greg Erosenko said, "Disappointment is probably an understatement. We're in the holiday season... Just don't understand these young folks that were down there."
The mayor thinks the violence could not have happened at a worst time as the mall is making a comeback.
"If you look at our mall, it's been reinventing itself over the last couple of years. They're doing very well; to have an incident like this is very tragic," Mayor Erosenko said.
Police estimate more than a thousand teenagers showed up at the mall at the encouragement of social media.
Two people were injured and no one was arrested.
Police say it was clearly a misuse of social media, but now they hoping social media will help lead to the identification and arrest of the troublemakers.
Police Chief Doug Cole of the Monroeville police department said, "We do anticipate us following this up, and hopefully make arrests. We have cooperating victims."
While teenage girls were fighting, a number of males were using cell phones to record the violence rather than trying to stop it.
The mayor says he blames social media, "If I can get that out there as a plea to have the parents of these young people to please help get that under control. Because it's not good for us as a community; it's not good for anybody. It's very negative."
The mall reopened for business Saturday at a heightened police presence.
The mayor says he plans to meet with mall officials on Monday, "We're going to do some strategic planning with the mall to hopefully control or prevent any type of activity like this last night."