Security Officer Injured during Arden Fair Mall Chaos
SACRAMENTO CA December 29 2018 A security officer sustained facial injuries after several fights broke out inside the Arden Fair Mall Wednesday and spilled over into the parking lot.
The mall was scheduled to close early at 6 p.m. and, according to Sacramento Police, the fighting started just before closing time. Police detained 10 individuals but say as many as 100 juveniles swarmed the mall parking lot, jumping on the hoods of cars and damaging property.
Police set up a skirmish line and moved the crowd out to Arden Way where they eventually disbursed. Mike Turzios works at a mall restaurant and saw the whole thing unfold.
“It was just a melee,” Turzios said. “This has been happening every year, and every year it gets worse around this time. They were going car by car, stepping on hoods, windshields, breaking windshields, breaking rearview mirrors and just, you know, causing destruction.”
Sacramento Police already had extra officers on scene to provide additional security for the day after Christmas shoppers and were aware that similar incidents had taken place during this time in year’s past.
“Well there have been instances of that in the past,” said Linda Matthew with Sacramento Police.
“We didn’t have any arrests yesterday, however, our detectives are now looking into any video that was taken on scene at the mall,” she said.
Turzios said there were more officers at the mall than he’s ever seen before, so he’s sure they were anticipating something might happen, but it was still a shock when it actually did.
“It was a little disturbing and scary to see just how the mob mentality works,” he said.
Police say if they can identify any of the individuals on video, they will hold them accountable.
CBS13
