Crime & Safety

MSSO Convenes Meeting to Discuss 'Flash Mob'

The official estimate for the size of Saturday night's crowd is now up to 500.

Main Street South Orange convened a Thursday morning meeting with police supervisors at Village Hall to address concerns of business owners and residents over the "flash mob" that formed in downtown South Orange on Saturday night. The official estimate for the size of the crowd—which consisted mostly of 14- to 17-year-olds, according to police—is now up to 500.

Capt. Kyle Kroll, who led the meeting and was joined by Chief Jim Chelel and newly-made Capt. Ed Heckel, observed that the "flash mob" phenomenon isn't unique to South Orange; Philadelphia police responded in a similar fashion to local police this weekend—deploying an "all hands on deck" mentality and cobbling together manpower to help disperse the crowd. (South Orange requested assistance from Maplewood, East Orange, Orange and NJ Transit.)

Kroll said that police planned to start monitoring social media, particularly Twitter, for buzz about "the Vill" (as South Orange is commonly called by the teenagers from surrounding towns who gather here on weekend nights), and that he had been in contact with a State Police detective experienced in this. However, he noted that such monitoring is time-consuming. He also said that the department planned to bump the midnight shift up an hour on the weekends in the immediate future to double the manpower, and headquarters would be based at the Sloan Street police sub-station during the critical 8 p.m. to midnight period.

Find out what's happening in South Orangewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"We're not going to accept these kids jumping around, blocking traffic," said Kroll, who spoke of a "zero tolerance" policy.

He also observed that the teenagers' civil rights have to be respected and that the majority are law abiding and simply drawn to an appealing place to socialize. "Twenty percent of the people do 80 percent of the work," he said, referring to the relatively few teens in the crowd who create disturbances.

Find out what's happening in South Orangewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Some members of the business community in attendance asked about what police can do when a small group of teens blocks the sidewalk. Village Administrator John Gross illuminated the challenge for police in crowd control, since a New Jersey Supreme Court case holds that people have a constitutional right to be wherever they want—providing they aren't breaking laws. (Loitering laws are being taken off the books in towns like Maplewood, since they've been found to be unconstitutional.)

"The challenge for the municipality is to find out what laws are being broken and how to deal with those," Gross said.

Bunny's owner Leslie Pogany noted that when her children were younger, the fad for local teenagers was to congregate in front of King's in Maplewood, and local police would drive by with a bullhorn to disperse them. Chief Chelel observed that today's teenagers seem to be less awed by police than in the past, and Kroll gave the example of a 14-year-old girl who addressed police with profanities on Saturday.

Chamber of Commerce President Alan Noel said he hoped businesses would band together to come up with a plan to draw more adults to downtown South Orange. Main Street South Orange President Adena Traub later noted that plans are in motion to reinstate the weekend "Staycation" concert series that began last summer, starting April 17 for a 16-week period. This year, they'll be called "Downtown After Sundown," and the Village Trustees have agreed to chip in money. A monthly vendor bazaar is also part of the plan.

Toward the end of the meeting, Main Street South Orange Executive Director Carole Anzalone-Newman mentioned the idea of hiring a Columbia High School student to monitor social media for rumblings of a weekend convergence on downtown South Orange.

Capt. Kroll urged residents with information from social media about the possibility of a flash mob forming to contact police.

"I'm offended if someone had information that something of this scale was going to take place and didn't contact us," he said.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.