Something has to give! Teen takeovers explode across the US - plus scrambling to fill World Cup stadiums

**Christy Strawser** (0:00)
Welcome to On Deadline, your radio news from Audacy newsrooms across the country.
I'm Christy Strawser, Audacy's managing editor of news. Blame social media, but summer has barely begun, and there are stories across the country about so-called teen takeovers, where groups of young people show up en masse at the same place and same time, and mayhem ensues. Public safety is an immediate concern. Here's more on that with Bob Rose at WSKY in Florida.

**Chris Simms** (0:26)
You know, keep in mind that technology is ever evolving. It seems like every single day that I look at a new story or an article or something, there's the latest and greatest in artificial intelligence, drone technology, you know, weapons systems, all of these things, but you got to remember that we always have to be one step ahead. So as we continue to move forward, we're right in the contract and construction stages of our new real-time intelligence center, which will utilize a myriad of law enforcement technology, everything from gunshot detection systems to traffic engineering, camera systems, license plate readers, all those things with the goal to enhance security and safety here in Alachua County. Please keep in mind that already we've seen drastic decreases in violent crime over the last six months to a year, and we impart that a lot to what we consider to be professionally aggressive law enforcement.

**Bob Rose** (1:21)
Okay, all right.
Look, I love it. Captain Chris Simms, he's the public information officer for the Alachua County Sheriff's Office. And speaking of which, aggressive, aggressive enough to stop these teen takeovers because we've seen them around the country and things can get out of control very quickly. You know, Alachua County is not super populated like Clearwater Beach in Pinellas County, and they had their struggles dealing with crowds there. They have.

**Chris Simms** (1:50)
So I want to tell our community, you know, they've already had three of these teen takeovers. They often bring violence.
We are not immune to violence in the form of, you know, gunshots and things of that nature. In Clearwater, we saw, I believe, where one or two folks were injured from gunfire.
And I will tell you this, at least for the Lattre County Sheriff's Office, we're at a zero tolerance at this point. We're already in regular communication with the Attorney General. The Attorney General, you know, Attorney General Othmeyer has really taken a strong stance on these teen takeovers, where they want statewide prosecution for anyone who decides to form or create one of these teen takeovers. We saw one at the bowling alley over there near the skating rink.
This past weekend, 200 to 300 people, they were all, you know, beating on one another and filming everything, and it took hours to get them out of there. We did make several arrests. The goal is not to arrest your juvenile child, and the goal is definitely not to show up to your home and knock on the door and tell you that a stray bullet hit and killed them, okay? So pay attention to what your children are doing. You know, they are children and you are the parent. You know, I've got Life 360 on my kids. I know where they're at at every moment. You see them in areas where you know they shouldn't be. My grandmother used to tell me nothing good happens after dark for kids, all right? And I still live by that. At dark, my kids come home. I don't care if they're 16, 17 years old. Pay attention to who they're hanging out with. Pay attention to the areas that they're in. Keep an eye on social media where you're seeing that they're advertising these block parties or teen takeovers. Nothing good comes from these things.

**Bob Rose** (3:36)
Now you talk about technology and the advancements you're going to have at the Sheriff's Office.
But how do you balance this? You want to be proactive. You want to get the intel. You want to stop the crowds before they get large and out of hand. But we also have constitutional rights. You do have the right to assemble. So it's tough from law enforcement, right? You just can't bust people for congregating. In fact, you have to kind of wait for somebody to do something wrong, right?

**Chris Simms** (4:02)
Correct. So there is a difference in lawful and unlawful, right? The difference between peaceful protest or the constitutional right to freedom of speech is far different than what you're seeing in these teen takeovers.

**Bob Rose** (4:16)
No, I agree.

**Chris Simms** (4:17)
Right? So what you're seeing there is things such as a fray, right? They all meet up and the next thing you know, they create large disruption. They begin... The fights are almost instantaneous. I saw a video the other day. Within 30 seconds, they were mobbing two or three people in the street and just beating on them. So wearing what I call the ninja mask, the full mask so you can all see their eyes.