10 Busted in Mall of America Brouhaha

Retailers were hoping for a big day yesterday, but Minnesota's Mall of America might have preferred something smaller than a mob of hundreds of kids who wreaked havoc. At least 200 teens were involved in an hour-long melee that had shoppers scrambling and stores closing, some for the remainder of the evening, reports the Star-Tribune. Smaller fights broke out in the hours that followed, and Bloomington police arrested at least 10 teens.

The chaos began about 4:20pm, when a fight broke out among a large group in a food court. The unrest quickly spread through the mall, prompting mall security at one point to briefly call for a lockdown. "It looked like they were trying to pull people's stuff out of their bags," said one teen. Said a mom: One teen boy "was beaten to the ground. Lots of punches were thrown. We were held in the stock room for about 10 minutes." (More Mall of America stories.)