Wow…. Fight at the park…..

99er:

No amount of officers will make people think twice.

This. Generally speaking, a lack of basic critical thinking skills is what gets people into these situations in the first place, so it doesn't stand to reason that they would suddenly gain the necessary critical thought ability to avoid these situations at the sight of an officer or two. Yes, there would be exceptions, but generally speaking these things will happen regardless.

They don’t have critical thinking? I thought they were there for the Sandusky astrophysics convention. Boy is my face red.

Cartwright:

But seeing it on a YouTube video makes it okay to go back?

Speaking for myself, yes, because I'm not going with small children whom I am responsible for. I can book it out of there if I have to; but if I had little kids or an elderly parent to shepherd out of a situation like that, you bet I'd think twice about possibly putting them in harm's way by taking them to an amusement park where punks are pulling knives on each other. Hopefully this is an isolated occurrence and CP responds in a way that helps. Otherwise CP is going to turn into Six Flags faster than anybody wants it to.

Why would you run out the front gate? Just stay away from the fight and keep to yourself and you’ll be fine.

I highly doubt there was a knife involved, especially with these shoe-throwing kids.

Just like the obscene language from the boats, this too is an isolated incident, it's not an everyday or even every week type of thing.

I’m sorry about all this, but it’s nothing new and this is happening everywhere. I’m in a neighborhood where the homes approach a million dollars and this stuff is happening in our beautiful park on the corner. Our high-end shopping mall has had no end of trouble. Our clubs and taverns are danger zones. Why? Because sadly, that’s how it is these days.
In case nobody’s noticed, fights have been reported at Disney, Six Flags, and every Cedar Fair park including precious Cedar Point. Nobody and nothing can or will guarantee your safety. There’s nothing to do about it but stay alert, try to keep yourself out of harm’s way or stay home.

It is that way, but it shouldn’t be.

Everybody thinks they are the main character in their own story, these days, and they feel that since they paid money to be somewhere, they should get to enjoy it on their terms - completely neglecting that everyone else also paid to be there (or is shopping/eating, etc..).

It is pretty terrible, and has made doing anything less enjoyable than it used to be.

SarahB1863:

Also, for those wondering about the knife, the punk in the tan sweatpants is brandishing it at 1:01 in the video. It's about switchblade size.

I watched it a few times and it is not a knife. It is a phone. At the 0:37 mark the kid in the tan pants pulls out a phone. You can see him with it again at the 0:56 mark.

Just some brief stats from this melee:

Punches Thrown: 1 (Maybe 2 if we're lenient on shoves)

Shoes Heaved: 2 (May have been the same shoe thrown twice)

Shirts Taken Off: 5 (This one always befuddles me)

Pairs of Police Pants Ripped: 1

Detainments: 1 (This guys seems to really not know how to scram)

Confused CP Security Guards: 2

And 1 vertical video. I hate vertical videos.

I am going to throw a shoe and the next person that posts a vertical video.

My son and I left the park from the Shores area around 6:45 PM or so. Passed a lot of these kids around the new Arcade area and... man... the bad energy coming off of them was thick.

^^ Wow.

99er:

When I worked at the park, you were never more than a few seconds away from 4 or 5 officers at any given time. Shame to see how long this went on and that after 2 minutes, only two officers arrived. I am sure more eventually did arrive but considering you can see the front gate from there, more should have been there quick. I am comparing to how security use to handle things and I have noticed the difference from the past so was this handled bad or slow?

I thought the same thing as well, as responses in the past seemed to be almost immediate. I remember one time some kids riding sky ride spat on employee manning a food cart underneath sky ride and she asked for my help since she couldn't really leave her post. I had a radio so called in the bucket number and color. I followed the bucket but security was already waiting for them at the top of the ramp way ahead of them even arriving.

All anecdotal, but I feel like there are less actual CPPD/ Sandusky officers patrolling than in the past. The number might be the same but the presence on the midways and lines feels lower. There does feel like they are plenty of grey shirt security guards, but they probably can't intervene in a physicals altercations like this.

Also I can't remember the last time I've seen security actively patrolling the busy lines. There used to be a good chance you'd see one around the MF or Raptor queues. They seem to only come in if there are issues now.

SarahB1863:

If I was there with my family and saw that, I would be heading straight to the gate and never coming back.

You don't think that's overreacting a bit?

Head for the gate... the very gate these fighters ran towards?

djDaemon:

This. Generally speaking, a lack of basic critical thinking skills is what gets people into these situations in the first place, so it doesn't stand to reason that they would suddenly gain the necessary critical thought ability to avoid these situations at the sight of an officer or two. Yes, there would be exceptions, but generally speaking these things will happen regardless.

So your reasoning is that police/jail/law enforcement/etc is totally useless in our society because people will do what they will do regardless? weird

I think the genesis of this fight probably was something significant...but the "fights" we see on the rise are the staged fights where groups of kids are planning these and recording them to post on social media...and then get views. Seriously, the fighting is real (or at least as real as the CP fight) but the impetus of the fights is the desire to film it...not some misunderstanding or disagreement. It is so weird.

fritzer:

So your reasoning is that police/jail/law enforcement/etc is totally useless in our society because people will do what they will do regardless? weird

This is a pretty extreme strawman argument, to put it mildly. No, I wasn't suggesting there should be no security or law enforcement, just that these idiots were unlikely be deterred by a few extra security personnel standing around. It was a counter to SarahB's suggestion that these fights could be avoided if only they had additional personnel.

Some of this stuff is happening in front of police for the express purpose of enticing the police to overreact...on camera...and get the attention that might warrant a $$$ settlement.