Mayhem continues as 200 teens crash Philadelphia mall for Snapchat-planned brawl, officials say

[jpak]

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

The mayhem that has rippled through malls in more than a dozen states continued Tuesday evening, when about 200 rowdy teenagers showed up en masse at a Philadelphia mall in a gathering planned on Snapchat, officials said.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told ABC affiliate WPVI that police responded to a report of a disturbance at the Philadelphia Mills Mall at about 6:45 p.m. The large group arrived by bus, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, but only about 30 or 40 were able to get inside.

"They went to the food court area and that's when they started running around, yelling and screaming and acting disorderly," Small told WPVI.

At least three teenage boys were arrested. This is the second time that a group of juveniles caused a disturbance at the same Philadelphia mall, according to the Inquirer.

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Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/home/4758048-155/mayhem-continues-as-200-teens-crash

[LisaM]

1. You know, I'd like to see a serious interview with some of these kids.

Are they bored? Angry? What is driving this?

[X_Digger]

4. Entitled special snowflakes with the attention span of a gnat.

https://www.facebook.com/deltaprotective/videos/10157890106040640/

[Initech]

8. Enacting their own version of Project Mayhem?

[HoneyBadger]

2. School is on break

[byronius]

3. 'Running around, yelling and screaming and acting disorderly.'

Organized by social media. Sounds like teenagers to me.

If they were rioting, causing property damage or assaulting shoppers -- different story.

Tough to be a young person in this modern world. A lot of stress no matter what.

[HoneyBadger]

5. And if your child was there

And terrorized, what would you think?

[LisaM]

6. I'm not going to write off teenagers because of this.

Where I find a difference between our running around and being full of energy as teenagers is that there is an element of intimidation here that I don't like. We live near a mall; it's within walking distance of our house, and unless we walk all the way around, we enter at the food court. I don't want to get caught in a melee.

[Hortensis]

7. Many are on cameras, and parents of many will be

not just learning about this but answering questions about their parenting from authorities.

My guess is this is in part a younger version of adult populism--hostile, destructive aggression against a designated target, usually "elites" or "the establishment," and that a lot of the kids are picking up their attitudes at home.

[sarcasmo]

9. Malls are still a thing?

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Ironically

this mall is way up in NE Philly right near the Philly/Bucks County border, so not that easy to get to. Normally this sort of thing would have (and has) happened downtown some 16 miles southwest of there at "The Gallery" (mall), but the Gallery has been closed the past year or so as they renovate it.