TikTok meetup ends with 300 teens gathering at mall, fighting with police

A TikTok post resulted in about 300 teens showing up at a New Jersey mall and now the town’s mayor is demanding change.

Once at the Menlo Park Mall, officials said that the teens started causing a disturbance, running through the shopping center, fighting with each other fighting with police, News 12 New Jersey reported.

There was no damage to the mall, but an officer was hurt, WABC reported.

After about an hour and a half, the crowd was gone and seven teens were under arrest, mostly for resisting the police.

One who was arrested was accused of assaulting an officer.

In all, police from nine different communities had to respond, along with the New Jersey State Police, according to My Central New Jersey.

All of the teens, ranging in age from 15 to 17, were released to their parents, whom Mayor Sam Joshi partially blames for the melee, WABC reported.

“What are the parents doing? Aren’t the parents aware that they’re traveling 45 minutes to cause a disturbance within Edison Township? It makes no sense. Parents need to be focused on their kids, making sure they’re not causing this kind of rowdiness in other towns,” Joshi told the media.

He also has partially blamed mall owner Simon Properties, saying that they need to have a plan in place to prevent something like this from happening again.

“We expect them to have more license plate readers throughout the property, more cameras throughout the mall, as well as the parking deck. We wanted to ensure they significantly ramp up their private security within the mall,” Joshi said.

Mall officials said in a statement to WABC, “The behavior during Saturday night’s incident is not tolerated at our property.”

“The safety and security of our retailers, employees and customers is our highest priority,” a mall representative said. “We deploy around the clock patrols by a team of trained security professionals, supported by patrols by paid off-duty and on-duty police officers. Menlo Park Mall is also supported by real-time video surveillance of our property as well as license plate readers that provide real time alerts to EPD.”

The mall, however, said it has increased police and security presence.

The TikTok account holder who posted the meet-up has not yet been charged, but “everything is on the table,” Joshi said, according to My Central New Jersey.