A massive fight broke out yesterday at The Lauderhill Mall in Florida in which two teens were sent to the hospital with minor injuries, CBS Miami reports. Officials are now saying that a post on social media may have sparked the sudden melee.
"It was just a whole big ol' chaos right here in the Lauderhill Mall," Rodney Jones, a witness who works at the mall cutting hair, told CBS Miami.
"What that message was, we don't know," Lauderhill Police Lt. Mike Butkus told NBC Miami. "Essentially that's what was used and we believe it was to fight somewhere in the mall, over what, we do not know. I don't know what the motive was for using the mall or why they would want to fight."
Though there were no arrests made, witnesses said that the scene was chaotic. Shopper Danielle Jozwiak was also present at the mall when the large number of teenagers gathered in the mall's parking lot outside of the Dollar Store before spilling inside the building, with more than 200 showing up for the sudden flash brawl.
"There was more than 100," Joziak told reporters. "You couldn't even see [the parking lot] they had the sidewalk and the whole road full of kids."
Witness Frank Francis told CBS Miami that a social media post had invited teens to come out and settle any issues they might have at the mall. "I just heard that anybody that had beef with each other is supposed to come over here and fight," he said.
After several hours the mall was re-opened, but a few police officers remained at the remained at the scene that night. Initial investigations of the fight suggest that it may have begun as a fight between two girls, and other possibility is that the gathering was organized intentionally via social media.
An anonymous Florida teenager calling himself "D" told NC Miami that "whatever pressure you had against anybody, you had to come out today."
Authorities have also not ruled a rally in response to the current George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin murder trial.
Click here to see the live video footage of the sudden mall brawl.
