Perhaps it’s because it was an otherwise slow Saturday night. Perhaps it’s because of the recent spate of violent incidents in public venues across the country. Whatever the reason, the story of the melee that broke out Saturday evening in the food court of the Mall of Louisiana involving some 200 local teens went viral and topped the list of trending stories for much of Sunday on websites such as Yahoo! News and Google. While there’s no way to do damage control in the age of social media, local law enforcement and elected officials are grappling with how to prevent such incidents from happening again. There’s no clear-cut solution. Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe, who tried unsuccessfully in 2011 to pass an ordinance that would have applied the existing 11 p.m. curfew to 17-year-olds, says he still favors a curfew as a potential solution. But a curfew wouldn’t have made any difference Saturday night: The fight broke out in the early evening, and many of the kids involved were too young to drive anyway. Councilman Joel Boé suggests that parents shouldn’t “use mall cops and store workers as babysitters.” But as a practical matter, District Attorney Hillar Moore III says it would be legally impossible to ban unattended minors from a shopping center. —Stephanie Riegel Read the full story here.
Today’s poll question: Does Saturday’s incident at the Mall of Louisiana make you any less likely to visit the mall?
