Nice to know you spent so much time and effort informing yourself to arrive at your opinion. Go read the rest of the posts before jumping to the wrong conclusions.
Kmart wanted the problem dealt with -- loiterers and drag racers.
Unfortunately, HPD went nuts. Rather than going after the loiterers and drag racers, they just started swooping in, blocking exits, and arresting every single person present, including legitimate customers, on bogus charges.
The James Coney Island raid was conducted on adults who had been meeting for ten years with the blessing of the owner of the establishment and were doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Because the police made no effort to separate legitimate patrons from loiterers in either raid, they destroyed their own credibility.
The drag racers and loiterers need to be dealt with, but that probably isn't possible now.
If only that were true. An editorial by a nearby resident said that the police only dispersed the crowd "two or three times in the past six months". The HPD let this grow into a big problem, then responded with military tactics.
If they had been patrolling the area, dispersing crowds, handing out tickets for loitering, and arresting people that actually committed a crime over the past six months, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Now when the nut case kids get killed while drag racing the parents of my johnny does no wrong sues Wal-Mart and the policee from not protecting their kids from themselvs.
Only 42 of the 278 arrested were juveniles. The rest were legally adults. Are you going to blame their parents, too?
Most of us are questioning the actions of the police, which are very likely to be found illegal under Texas law. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a problem: only that the response to the problem was inappropriate.
2) The hypocrisy is just wonderful, don't you think?
Wal-Mart has denied calling the police to do this. Can you source your claims?
Correction: KMART.