Video shows mayhem at New York City mall as teens startle shoppers

By Allen Devlin

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    BRONX, New York (WCBS) — Videos show hundreds of shoppers running in a panic after a group of teenagers caused mayhem at a mall in New York City, police said Monday.

The videos posted all over social media show the chaos at The Mall at Bay Plaza in the Bronx over the weekend.

Mayhem at Bronx mall caught on video The footage shows groups of teens breaking out into sprints and circling the mall in Co-Op City on Saturday night. Three people were later arrested for disorderly conduct, the NYPD said.

The commotion panicked shoppers, but many did not know what they were running from.

“It was kind of shocking to see that there could be so many people in the same place doing the exact same thing. I guess it’s kind of like a group mentality,” one person said.

“It was kind of like very crazy to see that happen in a place that’s really local,” Emily Guzman said.

A woman working at Premiere Hair and Beauty Salon, right across from where the ordeal started, locked the doors out of fear.

“I was scared. I thought something happened in the mall,” she said. “And all the customers here were scared, too.”

Stampede after teen threw chair, witness says Witnesses said the mayhem came to a head in the food court, where a teen threw a chair before what was described as a stampede.

“Suddenly, we saw a group of children running through the mall,” said Marcia Liberato, who had a front-row seat to the situation. “Nothing bad happened. None of them were fighting. They were just basically being children.”

She said incidents like that are bad for business, but she’s happy nothing worse happened.

City Councilmember Kevin Riley, whose district includes The Mall at Bay Plaza, said he’s having conversations about additional law enforcement and potentially a curfew on younger shoppers.

“The mall is usually a centralized location where young people like to fellowship and network and have a great time together. But you still have to have a tremendous amount of respect when you’re coming into the mall,” Riley said.

In a statement to CBS News New York, the Mall at Bay Plaza said, it “takes all steps to provide a welcoming and safe environment for our shoppers. From our understanding, a group of young people came to the Mall based on a false rumor of a social media influencer being at the property. We are very thankful to our great security team and our amazing partners at the NYPD for quickly coordinating to disperse the group and take control of the situation. We are cooperating with the NYPD on this matter.”

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