For those who are unaware, apparently a takeover is when groups of (I think mostly young, often of color) people agree over social media to meet at a specific location and “take it over.” I believe Chicago had at least a few such situations in which large groups of young people would block streets. I think there were occasionally violence or weapons issues, but I think most of the problem - to the extent there was any problem - was the inconvenience caused by large groups of young people.
Last weekend there was a takeover at the local pool a couple of towns over. To get it out of the way - the town is mostly white, the teens taking it over mostly Black. As I understand it, a couple of hundred teens met at the pool, entered without paying, opened other gates to allow others in, and then hung out. There are reports of drinking, pot, and fireworks, but no real violence. Maybe someone got pushed into the pool. Apparently 1 person was cited for shooting fireworks out of a moving car. I do not know the capacity of the pool, but I used to live there - I think 2-300 people would make it quite crowded.
I understand that many young people live where they have limited recreation opportunities. But I’m not sure that sufficiently justifies massing at a pool without paying. Or blocking public streets. The local cops certainly did not have the capacity to arrest and process a couple hundred individuals. And I’m not sure whether aggressive response would’ve exacerbated the situation by causing panic or confrontation. But I wonder if issuing at least a few more citations might have been worthwhile to discourage such actions in the future.
We’ll see if anything becomes of it, but Milwaukee is planning to enact a new ordinance fining people $500-$1000 if they’re involved in a street takever (not sure what’s considered ‘involved’).
Meh kids of today don’t know how easy they got it. Back in my day if you wanted several hundred unruly youths to turn up at a particular place and time you needed to work for it. We had to use actual IRL social networks to spread the news from person to person. Nowadays you just need to post on Facebook (or Toktok or whatever the kids are into, I rarely see anyone younger than 30 on Facebook)
Arrest some of them, fine some of them, do something. We always get huge groups that do this in NYC that completely take over major streets, even highways, with bicycles, hundreds of people that care fuck-all about cars or pedestrians, and just think they have the right to do whatever they want to because the police won’t do anything.
Thanks for the responses. I agree that SOME enforcement/penalties would potentially reduce some of the most extreme misbehavior.
VERY different issue, but our suburb recently seems to been having some success with a program of education AND penalties for illegal e-device use. IMO 2-300 people committing theft of services (not paying to get into the pool), or blocking traffic, sorta exceeds “kids just having fun.”
What’s the charge? Tresspassing? It’s a public pool. Theft? There’s no one at the desk taking money or the gates are knocked down by the time police arrive.
The police cleared the scene and did arrest the fireworks dummy.
If you have to pay money to get in, or break down gates to get in, then it’s not “public” in the sense of a wide open field. Why not trespassing or vandalism or something? I don’t know what exact types of charges they can bring but damaging property to get into a private space is definitely against the law.
Cleveland has an issue with street takeovers, where tons of people come with cars and/or motorbikes (I think more like motorcross not motorcycles) and shut down streets to drag race and be loud. But they’re also assaulting and intimidating and bringing firearms (airsoft and others). Cleveland has created a Street Takeover Task Force. They’ve made at least one big arrest earlier this year, and according to an article I read they’d nabbed at least 15 people by January.
This seems slightly different than the OP, though. This is adults and cars in the middle of the night. Tons of kids overwhelming a location seems pretty serious and scary!
The pool manager/staff, likely. I would imagine the person at the front desk would have no problem saying, “Those specific people went in without paying.” Or staff or patrons could sat, “That person opened a gate and those people came in it.”
Hate to repeat the racial aspect, but the fact that the majority of the takeover folk were Black and the community majority white would make it easier to identify some of them. I saw some comments on-line which states that there were at least a couple of groups of Black patrons at the pool earlier that day. So while the town is largely white, the pool does not seem to exclude any paying guest even if they are a nonresident.
Theft of services is generally a crime. Sure, can be difficult to prove - but not so difficult to charge. Especially with a complaining witness. How about good old disorderly conduct? And public consumption of alcohol and (I believe) marijuana - especially if under 21.
Tell your excuses to the judge. Even if they are eventually let off (which is no guarantee), I think there might be some deterrent value in causing some folk involved a little inconvenience.
I don’t know how really “scary” it would have been. More like unpleasant, if you were hanging out at a pretty quiet neighborhood pool, and all of a sudden it became something different. I guess if the folk seemed obviously not from the neighborhood, were flouting the rules and drinking and toking, I might get outta dodge in a hurry. Just not a scene I would wish to be a part of in case anything DID get (more) out of control.
Look, I’m playing Pool Takeover’s Advocate here. Once there are a hundred kids, there isn’t any sitting down with witnesses and management for discussions about who paid or climbed in. The cops clear the disturbance and kids go home.
Same here. But to me, the pool thing borders on civil disobedience if they have a legitimate beef. (Which doesn’t mean they should be charged, See MLK Jr.) But it does mean maybe we can support it.
This, on the other hand, seems inexcusable and worthy of severe penalties:
Sure, that is one approach. But I’m not sure it is necessarily the approach in this particular suburb - pretty small, pretty well-to-do. Not a ton of violent crime the cops have to face before heading over to the donut shop.
I’m often surprised when I encounter cops claiming they can’t do anything - when it seems they readily could. Or responding with excessive force when there seems no call for it.
I’m in (college town) California and never heard of it. But I don’t pay much attention to local news. Is this mostly a gang related thing or is it something organized by students who go to the same school? I didn’t think social media was generally localized enough for this sort of thing. What sort of platform are they using?
The problem I can see is that this large number of people probably exceeded the posted capacity for the swimming pool and the ability of the lifeguards to safely monitor it. What if in all that confusion someone was drowning?