ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown police continue to investigate a series of fights that broke out Tuesday after a few hundred youngsters descended upon a city park.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, community leaders warned about how social media is putting our teens and young adults at risk.<\/p>\n
The Youth Division of the Allentown Police Department is asking the public to submit video of a gathering that attracted about 250 people to the park Tuesday night, which led to several fights. Community leaders are discouraging these unruly ‘takeover’ events.<\/p>\n
“It was first arguing, and (then) people started fighting,” said one witness.<\/p>\n
That’s how it ends. But community leaders say it begins when teens and young adults are baited with social media posts like this one, which invited them a takeover event at Bosket Park, formerly Valania Park, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“PULL UP AND POP OUT,” it says…”TEEN EVENT 13-PLUS.” But this flyer is AI-generated, and the event isn’t real.<\/p>\n
“Once it’s sent to one person, it just goes through the network. It can be sent to thousands of people,” said Tyrone Fisher of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
When police arrived, they say there were about 250 people on scene.<\/p>\n
Police say the takeover event led to several fistfights. No weapons were used, but police had to clear the crowd of hundreds and closed the park early.<\/p>\n
Police Chief Charles Roca says parents need to verify these events are real and make sure there will be adult supervision.<\/p>\n
Fisher says without that supervision, confrontations can turn hostile.<\/p>\n
“What steers it away from confrontation and violence is structure. When you have that many teens in a place with no structure, things are going to happen because everybody is out for themselves. Everybody has an agenda,” Fisher said.<\/p>\n
Chief Roca tells parents to discuss the potential risks associated with these unsanctioned events and discourage teens from attending.<\/p>\n
Fisher says organized events make all the difference.<\/p>\n
“If you have 250 teens- plus structure- you’d be amazed at what you can accomplish,” said Fisher.<\/p>\n
Allentown Police have reported no arrests, but emphasize when the people who were fighting are caught, they will press full charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown police continue to investigate a series of fights that broke out Tuesday after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154,31],"class_list":["post-136909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}