ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Orlando police are investigating after another group of teens swarmed a community event in Pine Hills over the weekend. It\u2019s the second time in three weeks a so-called teen takeover caused chaos and injuries in public places.<\/p>\n
Organizers of the event this past weekend in Pine Hills are frustrated that their free event for family fun turned into a place of chaos Saturday afternoon in another teen take over. Orlando police and sheriff\u2019s deputies responded to break up a big fight in a field right next to the event. Now, a security expert said that churches, nonprofits and other groups hosting events this summer need to plan for the unexpected.<\/p>\n
Witnesses who saw the teen takeover say a large group of young people swarmed a field and then a fight broke out at a park next to the Central Florida Fairgrounds.<\/p>\n
Paul Josaphat is the organizer of P Day, a free event that offers sports and fun games to give teens and other young people something to do. When he saw the swarm of teens in the parking lot, he ended the event early.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shut it down because I didn\u2019t want it to escalate further than what it is. Then it would have been all on me,\u201d Josaphat said.<\/p>\n
This was the ninth year for P Day. Josaphat says next year if participants are not 21 or older they will have to come with their parents.<\/p>\n
Dave Benson is an events security expert and a retired federal agent. He says teen takeovers are becoming more common across Florida, organized and driven by social media messages that urge teens to get involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s safety in numbers. They\u2019re probably being told, it\u2019s the shock value. Nobody\u2019s going to be hurt. It\u2019s going to be great, and in fact the likelihood of people getting hurt or property damage is really a lot,\u201d Benson said.<\/p>\n
Benson added that the trend might not end soon. He says churches, nonprofits and other groups holding events this summer have a new list of security questions to ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is invited? What security will be available? What to do in emergencies? How to respond to that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Benson says the weakest point of security at an event is in the area just outside your ring of security, and that\u2019s what happened in Pine Hills. He says event organizers have to coordinate with police ahead of events. He says parents and others attending events need to think about what they will do to remain safe or quickly and safely exit if a public place suddenly becomes chaotic.<\/p>\n
Benson stresses that parents need to talk to their teens about the serious trouble they could get into if things spiral out of control.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assure you law enforcement is going to take this very seriously, and there\u2019s going to be strict repercussions for this kind of behavior,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Orange County Commissioner Mike Scott agrees parents have to take control of their children and convince them not to join the teen takeovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think parents have to understand it\u2019s not a one- or two-time conversation. It\u2019s a continuous conversation, and you\u2019re mom and dad of your kids, right? But you\u2019re also a mom and dad of their friends and their friends. So, it\u2019s making sure you have a consistent relationship not only with your son and daughter but also with their friends,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
Josaphat says P Day will be back for its tenth year in 2027, but with robust security.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtra security and extra police too. Not just extra security but police too, because it\u2019s getting wild out here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When we asked for an update on the investigation on Monday, the Orange County Sheriff\u2019s Office referred us to Orlando Police, the lead agency on this case. Orlando Police did not respond to our request Monday for an update on the investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Orlando police are investigating after another group of teens swarmed a community event in Pine Hills…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1011,2967,274,4995,1190,1337,115,772,139,141,140,277,278,835],"class_list":["post-267651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-crime-safety","tag-human-interest","tag-keith-landry","tag-news","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}