According to WTHR there’s a new push to make our malls safer. A group of local clergy wants to limit the time teens can be at the mall without their parents. Also, Indianapolis Public Safety Director Troy Riggs is asking for parents to help.
This comes after four teens were arrested and a mall patron was injured in a scuffle at Circle Center Mall Saturday night, and another teen fired shots in the parking lot of Lafayette Square Mall Friday night.
The thought is if the parents are getting involved, violence like this might not be an issue. But parents are either dropping their children off at these malls or allowing them to come on their own.
A group of Indianapolis ministers feels it’s time for a new policy.
Monday, the clergy members met with Riggs to discuss how to prevent violence. One idea is to implement a mall curfew, where minors wouldn’t be allowed in after 4 p.m. or 6 p.m. unless they’re accompanied by an adult.
“You have upward to two to four hundred kids that are down there unsupervised,” claimed Rev. Charles Harrison. “And the adults are not with them and they’re hanging out in groups and then you have opposing cliques and gangs that are coming, and that’s the problem that the mall security is dealing with.”
A spokesman for Simon Malls, which owns Circle Centre, told our partners at the Indianapolis Star that while Saturday’s incident here was serious, that mall security handled it quickly.
