CBS New YorkNEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Tough new restrictions were issued at the Kings Plaza shopping center in Brooklyn this week, after mayhem broke out earlier this week.
As CBS 2’s Janelle Burrell reported, cellphone video captured the brawl at the mall in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, involving a flash mob of as many as 300 teenagers. Many of the teens were just 15 and 16 years old.
The melee began a short time before the mall, at Avenue U and Flatbush Avenue, closed for the night at 9 p.m. Thursday. The cellphone video showed a group of 300 young people charging through the shopping center as police and mall security tried to get them to leave.
Breeanah Thomas, 15, said she was part of the group who showed up Thursday after finding out about the gathering on social media.
“They had pepper spray. We attacked them because they attacked us,” she said. “They thought they were going to run us out, but they didn’t run me out.”
The owner of one kiosk said the melee damaged some of his items.
“Take the jar and broke the one jar, like $50 damage candy and the jar. It’s like almost $100 damage for me,” one candy kiosk owner said.
The disturbance prompted some store managers to close early, as police and mall security were quickly posted inside all the mall’s entrances and exits.
“A lot of kids running, and I’m hearing screaming, so the security guard said, ‘There’s a little security issue. You have to bring down the gates to keep the consumers, our customers safe,’” said mall employee Greg Casiano.
The mall responded Friday by only allowing minors under 18 inside only if they came with an adult. Officers were posted outside asking for ID, and unaccompanied minors were asked to leave.
The decision upset some young people eager to spend their Christmas cash.
“We came here to shop, not to start anything,” said Shaquille Scotland of Canarsie, Brooklyn. “So basically, we came here for nothing, and now we have to go back home.”
But some agreed with the idea.
“They’re trying to calm down with so much kids coming here, being reckless,” said Rodney Francois of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. “I guess it probably makes sense, for now, you know.”
The policy will be in place indefinitely. Officials did not say how it will be enforced. In fact, some underage teens told CBS 2’s Tracee Carrasco that security guards didn’t stop them Friday night.
“He said ‘oh whatever, go in, you’re not a bad person,’ so that’s why stuff like that happens — security ain’t that good,” 15-year-old Jonathan Rodney said.
The mall reopened at 10 a.m. Saturday. A spokesman said the mall was consulting with the NYPD about security, but it was not clear whether the restriction on minors was still in place when the mall reopened.
what purpose does it serve to check peoples i.d. none… OMG you don’t have an i.d. …. you can’t come in… who has got the money to go to the mall anyhow… not me… and I presume that most of the kids at the mall are just loitering anyhow…
Isn`t that a fact JENO!!! when I was a kid we all would go fishing or go build a tree fort, ya know, things like that and we would have a ton of fun. Now days it seems that they will hang out at the shopping malls and shop lift – some shop lift just to see if they can get away with it – sell drugs, or just harrass people etc. The people really have got to get back to the family unit ya know. 😐 😎
Wow…..300 of the little bastards. Must have been fun to watch.
I was thinking about the location of this incident and I started to wonder if it wasn’t an intentional attempt to start a race war, or at least get a bunch of racially motivating headlines from it.
I didn’t see any video, but if they were black kids they’re definitely in the wrong neighborhood to be going wild, and they know it. That mall sits between a million blacks and a million Sicilians, so it would be the perfect place to get something like that started.
Ever since “they” made it a crime to spank our kids as punishment, our kids have been running amok.
Who is to blame here? Who is responsible for our kids becoming the same suck-ass little bastards that our Politicians have become?
The only difference between these kids and our Politicians is that the Politicians get paid for doing this same exact thing….ripping of America.
Maybe this is a “psych op.” The end result is TSA at the malls.