Posted on 12/26/2011 7:14:35 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) – Police arrested nine people at the Mall of America Monday, the day after Christmas, after multiple fights broke out, authorities said.
Mall of America officials released a statement saying that around 4:20 p.m. 50 juveniles caused a large disturbance in the north food court.
Witnesses said the fights started after there were reports that rappers Lil’ Wayne and Drake were visiting the Mall. Police, however, did not comment on these rumors.
Cmdr. Mark Stehlik of Bloomington police said in a press conference that 30 officers responded to the fight and arrested five people (both adults and juveniles) for disorderly conduct.
Following the initial fight in the food court, more fights broke out throughout the Mall, and police arrested four other people, Stehlik said.
Police said as many as 200 were involved the fights. A YouTube video, which contains profanity, shows a fight break out and rage before a police officer interrupts it. The fight occurs at roughly 50 seconds in.
As the fights were popping up, the Mall of America inadvertently called for a lock down. But the lock down was called off minutes later, Mall officials said.
Although the Mall is keeping its normal hours, some stores within the Mall have closed.
Some witnesses reported being evacuated from the Mall; but police said that shoppers were escorted toward the east exit to make room for the investigation, Stehlik said.
According to Stehlik, no weapons were recovered, and there are no reports of burglary. However, there is YouTube video of chairs being thrown.
WCCO has a crew on the scene and will bring you the latest on WCCO 4 News at 10.
I take it you live nearby. I was overnight on business and ventured to that mall instead of staying in the hotel room.
Is the log ride still there? I was bored and rode that thing 10 times.
Seemed like a nice enough mall as malls go but sounds like that might have changed?
Nailed it.
It’s been this way for a long time, it’s just rare that the disorder gets big enough to make the news. I live on the other side of the cities, I haven’t been to the mall in years.
I'm with you. Even though I live a fairly short drive (30 min or so) from MOA, stuff like this is why I very rarely visit the place (or downtown Minneapolis.) Maybe once every 3 years, if that (for either.)
Our shopper centers west of Newark NJ have bus access, but that’s it - certainly not the very cheap fare you mention to get to Mall of America (to get from our hotel to the train station was completely free). Any attempts to extend train lines to those wealthy ‘burbs in NJ have been quickly beaten down; Those Of Whom We Don’t Speak have a well-earned reputation for violence and pillaging.
The same type of feral yoots killed the Mills Mall in Hazelwood, Missouri. That was supposed to be a huge draw but “they” killed it.
Just like everything else good and decent.
on the 1st night of Kwanza my true love gave to me...brawls!
Where are the videos? The ones you listed all say ‘This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.’
I remember when the bus drivers went on strike in Minnesota a while ago, they said that the crime at the Mall of America plummeted because the trouble makers couldn’t make it there.
>What they are is inner city (ghetto) Minneapolis black kids who have nothing better to do.
Agreed.
>They ride the nearly-free Metro train (thanks to taxpayers) down to the MOA, where they ‘hang out’
Slow down there.. The tickets aren’t nearly free. It costs about 1.75 for a ticket there and 1.75 for a ticket back. If it’s rush hour, you end up spending about 5 bucks for transportation to and from anywhere. Chances are, if you ride the bus, you earn less than 20K a year. 3-5 bucks a day for transportation cuts into your budget.
And the last time I checked, the Mall was paid for by the public. As much as they’re boisterous and offensive, they have a right to assemble at the mall.
>It has gotten worse at MOA since the one mall in their own neighborhood Brookdale had to be torn down.
Agreed. I saw the decline.
>That one had to be closed and razed because these same punks took over, and most shoppers with any money were afraid to go there.
Shoplifting was the reason why the stores decided to go out of business.
>I heard other people call that mall “Blackdale” before it closed.
>Blacks outnumbered whites about 20 to 1 at Brookdale, and it was a bit scary going there.
It wasn’t that scary for me. I could tell the difference between the yutes and the regular people who wanted to shop there. (Bowlderized Chris Rock reference).
>This same thing could happen to MOA if the gangs aren’t controlled.
Citizens need to take care of their own security. The cops don’t have a legal right to protect you.
>And taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing the fares of these thugs to ride from Minneapolis to MOA.
They make up a minority of all commuters on the transit system. The majority are usually people who go to and from work, which is what transit is designed for.
>Triple the transit fares,
All that’ll do is make transit prohibitively expensive for people who don’t commit any crimes, further stagnating the economy. You’ll see changed behaviors, primarially yutes riding their bikes to the MOA. And what should we do then? Ban bikes from the MOA? Good luck.
>and hire more cops,
Be careful what you wish for. More cops != more security.
>or good luck getting whites to shop there.
Why don’t whites learn from the people who are stuck in the inner city and start carrying weapons for self defense? They’re not that hard to attain nor manufacture. Pepper spray is easy to get, and you can make a simple blunt force weapon by stuffing some pennies or a bar of soap in a sock. I did it all the time back when I lived in the inner city. Pepper spray is enough deterrence to most of these hoodrats.
>They’ll go to Southdale or one of the other ‘Dale’s that does not have subsidized Metro train service.
Route 6 goes to Southdale and they have the same problem at Southdale. Eliminating bus service would be an alternative, but seeing as so many of those malls depend on low waged workers, that’s an impractical solution.
The problem is that the PC Malls in this area don’t allow people to conceal and carry. (Which is why I mentioned carrying a soap sock and pepper spray) Start allowing people to carry weapons on them and start confronting these yutes instead of cowering from them and you’ll see mall violence plummet. Yutes hate it when people confront them. I’ve confronted a few when I lived in the inner city and they all backed down. An armed society is a polite society.
They were on there last night, when I posted the article.
of course, the real problem is that we are being out populated by trashy whites and animalistic blacks....we sit like pigeons waiting to be shot....
if we only knew to fight back once in a while...
I doubt you legally rode for free. If you ride on the bus or train without a proper proof of purchase, you get a $180 fine.
No, really; there is a shuttle that runs along the strip we were staying at (I think it was a Hyatt Regency?) that actually stops at stops labeled “Free”, and carries you along a specific route (which includes the train station to get to the Mall of America, the Metrodome, and the airport). I’d imagine they all subsidize it - it really was free (even the front of the bus says so). For the train, we bought tickets that nobody asks for, and there is definitely a fine if you can’t produce one when asked. When we got there we paid $27 for a shuttle to our hotel; to get back we paid a total of about $6, and it probaby took less time (and was more comfortable - the shuttle was like those in the Caribbean).
Yeah, the shuttle itself is paid for by the hotels and isn’t associated with Metro Transit in any way.
LOL.
A Twin Cities DJ today called it “Brawl of America”.
The shuttles from the airport we paid for; the shuttles that passed our hotel were free transit buses for Nicollet Mall (and labeled as such).
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