Update: Video of the incident was released Wednesday.
Original column: When I was growing up, kids spent their summers fishing, working in tobacco, visiting boring relatives or maybe even reading a book.
Credit: George Mathis
Credit: George Mathis
Much of that still happens, except for maybe the book thing.
What's new is the urge of youngsters to gather in large destructive swarms and make life miserable for the rest of humanity.
The Macon Telegraph reports a group of about 50 teens swarmed a Georgia Wal-Mart and began smashing up the place. One customer in a motorized scooter was dragged from his seat and dragged on the floor, police say.
Police say store video shows a teenager -- identified as 17-year-old Kharron Nathan Green -- entered the store at about 2 a.m. Sunday morning and flashed "gang signs."
Then, a group of about 50 people ran into the store and began smashing stuff.
When deputies arrived, the mob hastily departed in multiple vehicles.
The only person arrested was Green, who returned to fetch a dropped phone.
Green, charged with inciting a riot and second-degree damage to property, told a Wal-Mart employee it was a staged event designed to cause as much damage as possible.
Only $2,000 in damaged property was reported, which is an average of $40 per unruly mob member.
Green initially told police he didn't know anything about the incident, but when his parents were shown store video he admitted he had been there. He refused to identify anyone else in the mob, but said the idea to break stuff at Wal-Mart was forged at a party.
I've been to a lot of parties, but never has anyone suggested everyone leave and go knock stuff off store shelves.
Nationally, this sort of thing seems to happen at theaters and shopping centers.
In February, 900 youths swarmed a Florida theater because they were not allowed to see 'Fifty Shades of Grey' without a parent.
Closer to Atlanta, in Conyers, 150 juveniles were removed from a theater for unruly behavior.
Sometimes it is violent.
In April, in Memphis, dozens of high school students swarmed and beat a gas station attendant who asked them to leave the property.
Bibb County Sheriff David Davis said he hoped mob attacks aren't a new fad.
"Due to the lateness of the hour I don’t know that they were going to be going to church the next morning," said Davis.
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