Kids are not okay: Teenagers fight in large crowd at Stonestown Mall

After a recent spate of incidents in the news of Bay Area kids bringing guns to school and stabbing their classmates, we’re getting news of multiple incidents of mob violence among school-age kids at the Stonestown Galleria.

Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose neighborhood includes the Stonestown Mall, released twitter alert for parents on Sunday, warning them to follow their kids on social media.

“Over the past couple of weeks, there have been altercations between young people at the Stonestown Mall that resulted in bodily harm,” Melgar wrote. “Stonestown private security has been overwhelmed and SFPD personnel have been deployed. Videos of the fight were posted and promoted live on Instagram.”

One video posted Sunday to the Instagram account @sfstreets415 shows a large group of teenagers in a state of disrepair on the second level of a mall food court, and it appears that several people were kicking a man on the ground.

The mall has been a hangout for teenagers after school for decades, and some locals might say that this kind of thing has always happened. But Melgar suggests that social media may play a role in encouraging an upsurge in violence. “It fuels so much activity,” Melgar says in an interview with the Chronicle.

And SFPD public information officer Robert Rueka said in a statement to the Chronicle, “This display of violence at the mall is not common.”

On Monday, Rueca said it would increase the footprint of police foot patrols at the mall, saying the cops would “immediately crack down on any criminal acts of violence.”

Melgar said in a tweet that these incidents become especially common on Wednesdays, when nearby schools are released early.

KPIX reports that the most recent incidents took place on Friday, the first of which was a “beating up” at a Stonestown Target store that was recorded on several teenagers’ cell phones as it happened.

“Some time later, there was another attack in the Stonestown food court. It is not clear if the same group of students was involved,” KPIX tells us, possibly referring to the incident shown in the video above. “Two of the victims were attacked, although the attackers focused mainly on one young man.”

This latest incident was described by the Chronicle as involving about 100 people, and the newspaper also mentioned an incident earlier this week that involved about 50 people. Two minors were reportedly injured in an incident on Friday.

Melgar also said the school district should take advantage of the funding transferred under Proposition G for after-school programs. And she said she would work with the Department of Children, Youth and Families to find solutions.

Previously: San Francisco high school stabbing comes amid spate of violence at local schools

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