A group of teens shut down a mall in Louisville, Kentucky by fighting one another and spreading havoc in the stores. Kentucky police say over 2,000 teens, and young children stormed the Mall St. Matthews over the weekend and started brawling.
A group of teens shut down the Mall St. Matthews by spreading chaos, and their parents are being blamed.
Police in Louisville, Kentucky had a very busy Saturday night. According to law enforcers, at around 7 PM, they received several 911 calls reporting brawls taking place at the Mall St. Matthews located at 5000 Shelbyville Road. St. Matthews Police spokesman Dennis McDonald claimed that between 1,000 to 2,000 teens and young children had stormed in the mall.
Some of the teens started a melee and made it impossible for shoppers to get to stores (the 26 is one of the busiest shopping days of the year with most stores having blowout sales and many clients returning unwanted Christmas gifts) while others simply stood around idly and refused to leave the mall.
McDonald stated that during the holiday season, the department always stations extra police at the mall and there were a total of six police officers present at the shopping mall over the weekend to help mall security. However, at some point, the half of dozen officers were no match for the more than 2,000 teens, who were fighting. McDonald revealed:
“As they responded, those calls continued to mount up and they could not handle the volume of calls that they were receiving.”
To better handle the situation and avoid another Ferguson/Baltimore moment, St. Matthews Police Department requested assistance from neighboring agencies. A total of 50 law enforcers marched to the mall, and the greeting they received was not very Chistmassy. McDonald shared:
“Their sole focus at that point was getting them to disperse. A lot of the juveniles were being confrontational. Officers were being cussed at, yelled at, harassed.”
Despite the chaos caused by the teens, none of them were arrested because officers were solely focused on “restoring order.” A few minor injuries were reported, and the mall was closed for the rest of night but reopened for business as usual on December 27. McDonald went on to say that the police department will continue working security at the mall to avoid these kinds of situation. He revealed:
“We’ll have a law enforcement presence there today,” “We’ll be working with mall management and mall security to see if they can come up with any policies … to curb this kind of behavior in the future.”
According to several media outlets, a large group of teens almost shut down the mall on Black Friday due to a fight over merchandise.
Some are saying that the teens used social media to “invite” others to the mall and shut it down for no reason at all. Many are blaming the parents of the teens for their disorderly conduct.
