A group of teens started to fight at the food court of Fox Valley Mall prompting the establishment to be shut down to the public. A total of eight juveniles were facing charges such as resisting police, disorderly conduct and battery.
Chicago Tribune reported that the Fox Valley Mall, located in Aurora, was closed for around an hour on Monday night after the large crowds that gathered in the area started to fight. The crowds were composed of teenagers and Police Lt. Rick Robertson confirmed that there were around 1,000 teens during the incident. Not all participated in the fights and some were just running from section to section.
The first fights started at around 6:30 p.m. after bottles of water and Gatorade were thrown from the upper levels. The store had to be closed in order to prevent other teenagers from getting inside and being part of the brawl. Employees were moved out first then the customers were subsequently asked to leave the area.
One of the customers, identified as Margo Whelan, said that authorities locked all the doors and followed customers down the escalators. This is not the first time that teenagers started fights at the malls as there have been similar incidents in the past days in different malls nationwide. It is possible that these latest brawls were influenced by social media or the news reports about the fights that broke out in other places.
FOX 32 reported that the eight teenagers, who are facing misdemeanor charges, have not been identified but their ages were released. One is a 17-year-old female who is facing battery and resisting police charges.
A 15-year-old female was also charged with resisting police and disorderly conduct. A 13-year-old girl was charged with battery as well as another 15-year-old male and female. Two 14-year-old boys and a 16-year-old girl now face the charge of obstruction police.
In an attempt to break out the fights, a mall security officer and one of the cops responding were battered. No other injuries were reported. A total of 75 officers responded to the fights.
