Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990 TAG: 9003123115
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Mary Bishop Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Mall manager Louise Dudley said today the mall closed early to prevent injuries after pushing and shoving broke out in crowds of about 400 people who had gathered to see a fight. She said most were teen-agers.
There were flareups in four mall areas within 100 yards of each other, she said. "Tempers started to flare. People were beginning to take sides."
"It was the first time we've had this many people in a congregated area," Dudley said. "We've never had to close the mall before because of fighting."
She said Lynchburg police and school officials heard rumors late last week there would be a weekend confrontation between youths at the mall. She doubled her security force but nothing happened until Saturday night.
Lynchburg police said the mall's closing followed a fight among teens near the Mindboggle video arcade and the arrest across the mall of a 16-year-old Madison Heights youth on charges of assaulting a city policeman moonlighting there. Dudley said the incidents were not related.
Late last month, fights near the Mindboggle arcade at Roanoke's Valley View Mall and gunshots in the parking lot led to arrests of two Roanoke teens, but the mall has been quiet since then, security chief Jerry Wody said today.
Mindboggle Inc., based in Charlotte, also operates arcades in Charlotte, Fayetteville, N.C., and Colonial Heights.
Lynchburg Police officer Wayne Wood said Saturday night's fight near the Mindboggle at River Ridge involved a white teen-ager who said he was assaulted by black teens. There were no arrests.
Wood would not characterize the incident as racially motivated, however. "We've had plenty of blacks and whites fighting before" at the mall, he said.
Dudley said the mall has no evidence that the Saturday incidents stemmed from either racial problems or from reports of rival black and white gangs in Lynchburg.
She said there have been reports that some members of a white youth gang called the Hartt Foundation that frequents Lynchburg's Wards Road area had been barred from the mall. Dudley also has heard reports of a black gang called Park Avenue Posse.
The 16-year-old arrested across the mall near the Sears store and Morrison's cafeteria ran into and knocked down an off-duty officer as the youth was being chased through the mall by security guards, Wood said. Dudley said the teen, also charged with resisting arrest, was being pursued because he had cursed a mall guard.
The youth, also charged with resisting arrest, had been barred from the mall in December, according to Dudley. She said the mall is seeking warrants against him for trespassing and for cursing and abusing a security officer.
Mindboggle is not the only River Ridge location that's had troubles, Wood said. "I know we've had some knock-down drag-outs and shoplifters out there."
by CNB