UPDATED: Riot breaks out at Lake Winnepesekauh

The same thing happened in the 80's at Great America when I was a kid. There just seem to be certain days when there are more hoodlums than families. Yikes! If they wanted to get beat up, why not ride the coaster over and over?

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"It's not a Too-mah!" - Arnold after riding Batman the Ride*** This post was edited by janfrederick 4/21/2003 11:43:56 AM ***

Whats with people??? First the shooting at PKD now this! The season is just getting under way too. Hopefully this will be the last of it.

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After 4 1/2 years I'm a "single" rider again!

XBox Live Gamer tag: Coasterpunk

The same thing happened at SFGAdv back in the 80's while I was working there, which is why the park installed the metal detectors.

What will hurt attendance at a specific park more than a struggling economy, an on-going war or even bad customer service? Families fearful for their safety.

Interestingly, just returned from Orlando and for the first time in my life, left a park (IOA) early because it didn't feel real safe. Roving groups of teens looking to start trouble certainly isn't "amusing" unless it's some new themed land that Universal is piloting....

Yeah, I agree with you IBSteve. Just seeing how some of those "gangster" teens act is just plain scary.

And people are against abortion....

That was one of the dumbest comments I have ever read......

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Ah what the hell.....Magnum What?

S:ROS blew me away

So kids were left unsupervised... duh. This is precisely the reason I oppose parks that give away their season passes and have drive-up lanes to drop-off your kids (which is most Six Flags parks). Aside from the fact it makes no sense financially (why do you want more butts in the park when they don't spend any money?), it allows kids to test what they can get away with because mum and dad aren't around.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

And that's exactly why Kennywood DOESN'T have season passes. They're right on a bus line, even! Last thing the park needs is to become the city hangout while parents are at work. (There may be more to it than that, but when I was young my mom actually asked around at the park, and that was the reason she was told. It makes sense...)

It's a shame that this kind of thing happens. Hopefully it won't have any significant impact on Lake Winnie outside of this one evening.

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--Greg, aka Oat Boy
My page
"I can't believe I just left a nuclear weapon in an elevator." -- Farscape

Err... Ummmm. Sounds kinda like Magic Mountain! :-)

Don't confuse the fact that many kids, and season pass holders, like me arn't routy or very criminal at all. The PKD shooting couldn't be prevented since it was in the parking lot. PKD has had metal detectors installed for a while now after a fight on the Eifle Tower that could have involved knives that one of the instigators had.

I think park security should have been #1, but I guess piling guests in for money was more important.

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Love,
The Mole

... most theme park/ amusement park goers are townies anyway, well here in the UK anyway, you go to any of the top parks, thorpe, alton, blackpool and the guests are predominatly townies/ lower class. not being rude here but it's the truth

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Colossus [1]
Nemesis: Inferno [6]

Things like this happen and then people complain that the security to get into a park is an inconvience you can't win can you

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It isn't so bad. . .
Once you're used to it

The class of people doesn't matter. Unsupervised teens get into trouble. That's not a slam on teenagers, that's just the way it has been since the beginning of time.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Please let it be known, not all unsupervised teens act this way. Remeber that when you say things on these boards, some of us here are teens. We dont all want to start trouble.

Some thoughts on this...

I don't know how big Lake Winnie is. But I do know that closing the park early was quite possibly the worst thing the park could have done in terms of causing the neighborhood disturbance.

I have a hard time believing that 50-100 people will spontaneously begin fighting each other in a park. It starts with 2-5 people, and as the blows start falling, a crowd gathers, and people join in the melee, next thing you know there are 100 people involved in a riot.

Simply shutting down the park and throwing everybody out isn't a solution. It gets the problem out of the park, which is what the park was thinking, but it creates a new problem out in the neighborhood.

What really needs to happen is that when the fight first breaks out, park security needs to be on the scene right away, the instigators need to be isolated from the rest of the park population (and from each other), and they need to be thrown out of the park...preferrably into the back of a waiting police cruiser. Because park security can't be everywhere at once, the other thing that is needed is for every park employee to have at his disposal a telephone, radio, bullhorn, carrier pigeon, or other means for calling the security officer to the scene. Security may only be twelve bouncers, but the park has a thousand eyes and ears...and a little bit of communications technology can put those eyes and ears to good use.

Just my opinion based on what I've seen at a few Really Big Parks when trouble breaks out...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree and disagree with what you said, Jeff. Not all teens want to start trouble. I do think that all teens are out to have a fun time, unfortunately for a few it means that starting some trouble gives them that fun.

IMO, some responsibility goes back to the parents - if you know you have a bad kid, don't allow him/her to go to a place where they can cause some trouble. And if you do allow them to go out, let it be known that they have to take responsibility for their actions - that's how my parents have raised me. (I'm not trying to tell anybody how to be a parent, I'm not one nor do I plan on being one anytime soon.)

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Tommy Penner - YoYoBaybeeMan - St. Clair Shores Most Wanted

Yeah, about the thing at PKD, that was the only Saturday this year that i was not there so far, and now I'm glad!

I know that some teens are gonna be starting trouble at parks, and I have seen 2 almost get killed on a coaster because of what they were doing, but hey, I'm 15, and I don't need my parents hovering around the park to supervise me. If I couldn't behave at a park, then my parents wouldn't let me go. That is how it should be. And do think that more park security would be a good thing, because whenever I have seen a fight at a park, it is always over before security even gets there!

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wood's just as good

Read my comments again... I never said all teens want to start trouble. Don't put words in my mouth.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM