Hundreds of teens of unidentified race (but race doesn’t matter, we’re all individuals, right?) take over Connecticut mall, blocking and harassing shoppers

Newstimes.com, apparently the website of a Connecticut newspaper, has the story:

Melee breaks out at Trumbull mall: Hundreds of teens ejected and teen Tasered after knocking cop down
By Richard Weizel, STAFF WRITERS
Published: 12:13 a.m., Sunday, December 27, 2009

TRUMBULL—Hundreds of teenagers became embroiled in a melee and were ejected Saturday night from the Westfield Trumbull mall after harassing customers and exhibiting “rowdy and disruptive behavior.”

That resulted in a 17-year-old Bridgeport youth being stunned by a town police officer after charging and knocking the officer to the ground outside the mall, police said.

Trumbull Police Lt. Richard Applebaum, lead officer at the scene, said both the officer, Timothy McEnaney, and the teenager who attacked him were taken to St. Vincent’s Medical Center as a precaution, but were not seriously injured in the scuffle, which took place at the mall’s bus stop near Macy’s. He said many of the youths had congregated there after being ejected.

Both the 17-year-old and his 14-year-old cousin, who also charged police, were charged with breach of peace and interfering with a police officer, Applebaum said. He said the teens, not identified because of their age, are likely to be arraigned in Superior Court in Bridgeport early in the week.

About a half dozen Trumbull police officers, another half dozen officers from Bridgeport—as well as its Canine Unit—and a state police trooper arrived at the scene about 8:30 p.m. to help close the mall down a half-hour earlier than scheduled and to provide crowd control.

“This was kind of a strange one, a real fluke,” Applebaum said. “It’s not like all these kids decided to get together and be rowdy. But as the night went on, numerous kids at the mall became more disruptive, bothering and blocking the path of customers. They kept getting ejected by security, but kept coming back in. Finally, a large group congregated near Macy’s outside by the bus stop after they got thrown out and they wouldn’t listen to officer’s orders.

“After the 17-year-old charged the officer and knocked him down, the officer had no choice but to (stun) him,” Applebaum said.

Applebaum said no weapons were used, but the situation “was on the brink of getting out of control. Just the sheer numbers of the teens, which were in the hundreds, forced us to bring in back-up and make sure we could control the crowd.”

Applebaum added, “it was probably a combination of being a rainy day and the Saturday of the Christmas weekend that brought so many young adults out to the mall. They probably wanted a place they could hang out indoors. It’s a popular day to be at the mall anyway, and then when you add these other factors the situation kept getting worse. It was just a mass of humanity getting out of control.”

Deputy Police Chief Glenn Byrnes said the teens had been causing problems for mall security by bothering customers throughout the night. “The mall was very crowded and very busy with shoppers, and by the end of the night a couple of hundred people crowded outside the mall at the bus stop,” Byrnes said. “We wanted to keep this from getting out of hand and becoming even more volatile.”

Mall management and security declined repeated requests for comment.

- end of initial entry -

John Hagan, who sent the story writes:

The excuses used by authorities is classic. Can you imagine being caught up in that situation. But as the authorities said: it was a rainy Saturday.

LA writes:

John Hagan tells me that the Trumbull Mall is in or near Bridgeport, Connecticut, the state’s largest city. As of the 2000 census, the city had 139,000 people, with 45 percent white, 30 percent black, and 32 percent Hispanics of any race. The “white” category obviously includes many Hispanics. Perhaps even a majority of the “whites” are Hispanic.

LA writes:

Free Republic has a thread on the Trumbull Mall event. There is much informed speculation on the racial identity of the rowdy teens, based on subtle hints in the news article. One commenter says the mob was Amish, another corrects him and says, no, they were inner-city Amish, another says they were Albino-Aleutian Amish.

Comment No. 25 gives some background:

One of the first malls in the Area was Lafayette Plaza. It only now exists on postcards.

Lafayette Plaza

It was a nice and very modern mall when it first opened. A housing project opened nearby and soon the mall was deserted. The parking garage was the scene of many a violent robbery, rape, shooting and the local papers always provided a very good description of the car.

In a last ditch effort, the mall owners beefed up security, but this proved to be too little, too late. A couple of shootings and it was over.

So now this same crowd has discovered the Trumbull mall and it too has become a very unpleasant place to shop due to the crowds of ill-mannered, pushy ghetto scum.

Not only do you need to put up with them inside the mall, but you must hope that they do not shoot, rape, or rob you in the parking lot.

As you can see by simply reading this article, they are out of control.

Trumbull Shopping Park (Westfield) used to be a VERY nice and upscale place to shop.

Not any more.

Mark Jaws writes:

The more current demographics of Bridgeport make the town roughly a 1/3 white, 1/3 black and 1/3 Hispanic multicultural paradise. As we all know, whites routinely begin to pack it in once the 1/4 tipping point is reached. Bridgeport is rapidly heading towards becoming a New England version of Detroit.

Ferg writes:

Here in the Twin Cities we have a series of four malls that were all developed by the same company and occupy four corners of the Metro area. Brookdale, located in a second ring suburb north of Minneapolis, was closed a couple of years ago due to assaults, theft, and the shrinking crowds and sales that accompanied them. The surrounding neighborhoods had changed demographics in the years since the mall was opened, becoming heavily black. With that came the increase in crime. I had ceased going to that mall several years before it closed. The theater co-located with it had closed several years before the mall, and had been the last reason I had for going there. Now the one on the South side of town, even though it is in an upscale suburb, is dying too. The customers there are becoming less family friendly and include large numbers of Somali Muslims. Its death cannot be far away. Stores close and are not replaced. The food court is three quarters vacant. Yet we continue to tolerate this kind of damage to our habitat. If we whites were non human animals we would be on the endangered species list.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 28, 2009 10:00 PM | Send