Halloween Trouble At Six Flags America

It's not so much where a park is located, it's the type of crowd it attracts. Predecessor parks in the MD-DC areas met their demises due to unruley elements that congregated there that mangement couldn't control, for one reason or another. Glen Echo comes to mind. It's later years were plagued with roving gangs from DC who routinely over ran concession stands and games. It's not limited to the East coast either. Knotts has had it's share of problems in it's pre Cedar Fair days, as does Magic Mountain.

Granted, its not just the location, but when someone says "in an undesirable location", that's exactly what they mean. Furthermore, the crowd I saw there was the typical theme park assortment of geeks and freaks. In other words, totally safe.

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http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/

I think Jeff has hit the nail on the head by saying that there are too many unsupervised teenagers running around at these parks, which can spell trouble. Unfortunately, at this age you get kids who will fight over the stupidest things, such as "I don't like what school you go to, so therefore I will kick your ass."
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Did anyone ever bother trying out the seats on the KMG Tango? And if so, were they male?

I feel safe at SFA over SFGADV. I always have felt safe there. I go to the park about 4 or 5 times a year. I've never had any problems. The 2 parks I feel the safest at are CP and BGW. And they don't have metal dectetors which is weird, ya know?

BATWING FAN SFA said:

From the sounds of things in the lot on hHalloweenit reminded me of a similar incident that occurred at SFGRADV a few years back,of course I only read about it oon linehaving never been there mmyselfit sounded pretty bad.

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What happened at SFGRADV Batwing? I'm interested I never heard anything about. Please share :>)

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http://coastertrackrecord.tripod.com/

From what I remember reading there was a huge fight that broke out in the parking lot after a rap concert.

I've got a print out of the original article somewhere but can't seem to find it at this time & since it's an older news item I doubt that the original source still has it in their archives but feel free to try & find it if you can.

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Crashmando said:
The 2 parks I feel the safest at are CP and BGW. And they don't have metal dectetors which is weird, ya know?

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I remember when it was weird to go to a park that HAD metal detectors. Times have changed a lot. I agree though, CP and BGW are extremely safe parks with good crowds and lots of family groups.

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I'd rather be in my boat with a drink on the rocks,
than in the drink with a boat on the rocks.
*** This post was edited by Pete 11/3/2003 12:24:09 PM ***

Ya know, as long as I can remember, Great America has had problems during the Halloween celebration. Nothing new.

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"I go out at 3 o' clock for a quart of milk and come home to my son treating his body like an amusement park!" - Estelle Costanza

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Sam A. Marks said:

nasai said:
What I want to know is how many more gunshots than normal were heard that night? Peabody? ;)

I'd like to make a clarification.....

Parking lot altercations can happen anywhere at any time. Target, Kmart, 7-11, Pops corner store. My above comments were intended to be a somewhat humorus smarta$$ comeback to a smarta$$ comment. I didn't intend to imply that either park was even remotely dangerous. Sometimes I find it hard to relate to comments that are intended as malicious, and harmful, and in this case, I responded irresponsibly.

SAM

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never met a coaster I didn't ride (except Junior Geminii) :(

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*** This post was edited by Sam A. Marks 11/4/2003 9:16:34 PM ***

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Peabody said:

Between January first and May 1st Baltimore City (not the county, just the city) had 112 homicides. 15 resulted in indictments. Isn't life grand? ;)

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I live in Lutherville (suburbs of Baltimore in the county) and the news tonight said crime in Baltimore is down 30-40% than last year

Whole bunch of notes. The crime rate in Baltimore City has dropped considerably. I remembered when murders were pushing the 400 mark for a year.

I'm sorry that this thread has deteriorated as much as it has. I intended to report an incident. I didn't intend to berate the park. As stated earlier, I think that the park handled the incident well. I won't hesitate to go back to SFA, though I might think about avoiding Halloween for the crowds as well as this incident.

As to the parks location. It is located in an affluent suburb, however, it is outside a major city with the problems that all major cities in the US have.