Kings Dominion Halloween Haunt event breaks down into ‘mass chaos’ as teens brawl, police say
The Halloween Haunt event at the Kings Dominion theme park in Virginia erupted into "mass chaos" this past weekend as teens began fighting, police say.
A sheriff’s office in Virginia tells Fox News Digital that a Halloween event at the popular Kings Dominion theme park broke down into "mass chaos" over the weekend as a brawl erupted among young adults with as many as 300 people in the area encouraging the unrest.
Sgt. Steve Wills of the Hanover County Sheriff's Office said the incident happened Saturday night following a recent stabbing of an 18-year-old at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and fights in late August involving juveniles at the nearby Chesterfield County Fair.
"It seems to be this social norm now for this younger generation to just cause chaos and that is essentially what we saw," Wills told Fox News Digital.
"We initially responded to a fight inside the arcade," at Kings Dominion, Wills said. "We had a deputy that was right there, he came across the radio asking for assistance because he had, what he said, estimated to be about 300 people."
"We had a handful of people fighting surrounded by hundreds of people that were encouraging it, egging it on, being disorderly, being difficult for us to get through the crowd to get to the middle of what was going on," Wills continued. "And then as we start flushing them out of the arcade, that group goes outside and it just spreads to the outside now.... and then somebody screams ‘gun!" and next thing you know you have a flood of all these people we just kicked out of the arcade come rushing back in as we are trying to restore order and get outside to see if there is somebody with a gun. It was just mass chaos."
As of Tuesday, there have been no arrests in relation to the incident. Wills said 14 deputies had to respond to the scene at Kings Dominion, which is located outside of Richmond, Virginia.
"We as parents, as a society, have got to do better to raise these kids to be respectful and have manners," Wills also told Fox News Digital, adding that "we have got to do a better job of controlling our kids’ behavior and instilling good values in them so when they are not in our presence, they don’t behave like this."
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Kings Dominion told Fox News Digital in a statement Tuesday that the incident happened after rides and attractions inside the park "temporarily shut down due to inclement weather.
"A minor physical altercation occurred among some juveniles seeking refuge in the park's Candy Apple Grove area, but was quickly halted by the security team and parties involved were subsequently banned from the park," a spokesperson said. "Normal operations resumed once the weather cleared the area. At no point were any weapons used or found to be inside the park."
Kings Dominion describes its Halloween Haunt event as a "screaming good time."
"As night falls on the park, hundreds of creatures from the underworld emerge to make your worst nightmares come true. Spine-chilling haunted houses, elaborate scare zones and horrifying haunted mazes will force you to sleep with the lights on," a description on its website says.
