Videos on social media show brutal beatings at a San Francisco mall by a mob of young people, and some business owners are closing up shop rather than deal with the violence.
KPIX-TV reported that one mob attack broke out on Friday at the Stonestown Galleria at about 4 p.m. Video from the altercation showed a few dozen teenagers in hooded sweatshirts and backpacks attacking what appeared to be an Asian man. At one point, he is body-slammed into the ground.
A short time later, there was a second attack in the food court, though KPIX reported that it was unclear if it was the same mob or a different group of teenagers. That attack had two victims. One video shows a victim being stomped on the ground after being knocked down.
Witnesses to the beatings told KPIX-TV they did not interfere because they were afraid of being victimized themselves.
One food court vendor told KPIX-TV through an interpreter that he was shutting down his business over the violence.
“I’m very scared,” said Guang Wei, whose merchandise was damaged during the mob attack. “I cannot continue to do business here in this kind of environment.”
KPIX said witnesses told them that fights were becoming commonplace at the mall and if security guards try to intervene, they are often attacked by the mob
San Francisco police told KPIX they had not apprehended any suspects for the fights but that they were stepping up patrols at the mall.
San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar issued a warning to parents to monitor their children’s use of social media over the fights.
“Over the past couple of weeks, there have altercations between young folks at Stonestown mall resulting in physical injuries. Stonestown private security was overwhelmed and SFPD officers were deployed. Videos of the altercations have been posted and promoted on Instagram live,” tweeted Melgar
