^I didn't realize Fleetwood Mac's business had gone so downhill. Sorry, I guess that was off color.

I thought the exact same thing!

^^^Saw this earlier this morning, then saw on facebook I knew that guy.  Crazy.

 

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/police-are-investigating-a-dead-body-found-at-a-twinsburg-residence-sunday-morning.

 

 

Yesterday it was reported that there were signs of forced entry. However, my mother's morning update on the crisis is that it may have been a garage accident.

Gonna be vague on this one. There was some kind of incident/riot in the Eastlake/Wickliffe/Willibougbhi general area a day or 2 ago at an event. Small chance it was in Perry. I'll find out more tonight...

So there was a church fair in Wickliffe a day or two ago (St Mary's maybe?),  and a ton of cops had to come from different parts of town after al these  teenage kids started fighting, breaking windows(!), screaming....you can imagine. One of the cops got kicked pretty hard as well by a girl.

 

My gurlfriend's brother-in-law is a cop out there.

So there was a church fair in Wickliffe a day or two ago (St Mary's maybe?),  and a ton of cops had to come from different parts of town after al these  teenage kids started fighting, breaking windows(!), screaming....you can imagine. One of the cops got kicked pretty hard as well by a girl.

 

My gurlfriend's brother-in-law is a cop out there.

 

I was at that fair one of the days. It is packed with teenagers(like 80%). From what Ive heard there were several teenage girl fights.

^It was in Willowick at St Mary Magdalenes.

No coverage from the PD, News-Herals, Sun?  Couldn't have been THAT big a deal.  Besides, fights at catholic school fairs, festivals are hardly commonplace.  Growing up, I can remember there being quite a few at the St. Margaret Mary and St. Greg's festivals.  Don't even get me started on the St. Claire dances.

 

Not surprising either that there were a lot of girl fights.  I'm not sure about the rest of the area, but at my HS there were probably 2x to 3x as many girl fights as there were guy fights.

You also have the father and daughter who tried to hire a hitman to kill the daughters ex husband who lived in Georgia. To bad for them the hitman happened to be an undercover Eastlake policeman. After the undercover cop asked over and over "are you sure you want to do this?", the father paid the cop $3,000 up front and promised $50,000 once the man was dead. The cops let the man know and got him to pose for pictures pretending to be dead. The father and the undercover cop met at the Captains Club (Across from Classic Park), where the wired cop showed the man the pictures. After the father gave up the $50,000, the police came storming out from a back room and arrested the man. The daughter is also in trouble for being connected with the crime.

 

Edit: The story might be a little off but its close.

 

Edit: Here is the story.

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/06/beachwood_father_daughter_char.html

No coverage from the PD, News-Herals, Sun?  Couldn't have been THAT big a deal. 

 

This would not be my primary metric in determining the signifcance of an event.

It shouldn't be anyone's 'primary metric'.  I just have difficulty believing the sensationalist details when the local press hasn't made a peep (not saying it hasn't, but I haven't seen any).... especially given our local media's obsession with these types of stories.

I'm just saying plenty of things happen that never get a lick of press attention.  And with stories that are covered, ones I witnessed or heard witness accounts of, I've often found the press smoothing things over rather than sensationalilzing.  That's not to say they never sensationalize, but I think they typically err in the other direction.

It's subjective, but I disagree.  i think our local media sensationalizes these kinds of stories to the fullest extent practical.  Then again, there are a lot of people that sensationalize (sometimes extremely selectively) events which I don't find to be that big a deal.  For instance, either you (and some other forumers) have absolutely pitiful luck or you are one of those types.

It wasn't really that big of a deal, I don't think anyone was actually charged. Just handcuffed and had the fear of god put into them by the cops. (Or that's the rumor) And from what I saw no one was seriously hurt. (Though to be honest I was mostly focused on getting my kids out of there when the ruckus started.)

There were definitely people charged

I'm just going by rumors I heard, so I'll take your word for it.

Okay, it’s official: Painesville is safer than Mentor, Wickliffe, Mentor-on-the-Lake, Willowick and Willoughby Hills. so there! (though the term "luxury homes" might be a bit a stretch, but then again, it's used pretty liberally in NYC--lol)--

http://www.facebook.com/notes/downtown-painesville/cleveland-magazine-painesville-city-safer-than-mentor/218814401482809?ref=mf

 

^ I am hearing gun shots were fired at the Coventry Art Fair...is this true?

There were some kind of explosion-sounds out there last night after midnight: gunfire, car backfire, fireworks, who knows.  I wonder if that's what you heard about. 

I just had a facebook friend from Case say to stay away from the Coventry Art Fair...gunshots were fired...terrifying...

I was in that area (not really by choice) and it was a complete mess.  As the fair let out (theoretically at 6pm, I believe) there were hundreds of unsupervised teens pushing/fighting/crowding the streets (at Coventry's intersection with both Mayfield and Euclid Heights).  From what I saw, the bike police apprehended at least one young man who would not stop fighting, though many more could/should have seen handcuffs.  I don't know where all of these children come from, but many of them seem to be there to only cause trouble.  Fairs like this are coming close to no longer serving their original purpose and are simply acting as magnets for youths to congregate and raise hell.  It may be close to time for CH to admit they have a big problem and either fix things or pull the plug on it all together.

 

Once piece of good news, however, is that while I was around, I did not happen to hear any gunshots.  So, hey, they've got that going for them!

So frikin terrible...here's the news coverage:

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/06/hordes_of_unruly_teens_shut_do.html

There's been a lot of incidents in other cities like Chicago with out of control youth. I was hoping we could avoid it, but I think this is becoming a big problem for cities.

Too bad.  When I was there, everyone was having a good time and no one was causing trouble.  I took a bunch of pictures and will be posting them soon. 

 

Reading the comments to that article, it sounds like huge flow of kids showed up at the end (there were plenty there already) and a few fights broke out.  I hope no one was injured.  Sounds like no one was.  Can't these kids just wait for the Catholic School fairs to slug it out, like we did back in the day? 

Driving down Mayfield at around 6:45 PM was an absolute mess.  Kids everywhere blocking the street near the intersection of Coventry, walking in front of cars, screaming, trying to pick fights, etc.  A police officer was arresting one kid who was fighting right back with him.  Another police officer was reaching for his gun.  A bunch of girls were screaming at the top of their lungs.  All this was in the span of about 60 seconds that I was in the area.  I sure hope I just happened to go through there at the wrong time and this wasn't the scene continuously from 5:30 until 7 or later.  Incidents like this sure are terrible advertising for urban areas and Cleveland in general.  Luckily noone from out of town was with us, they may not have wanted to ever come back.

It wasn't the scene at 5:15.  Foot traffic was very light on Mayfield.  Probably got that way after the cops cleared the street when the fair ended at 6pm.  Lots of kids from a bunch of different neighborhoods (CH, Glenville, EC, Shaker, etc.) I would suspect in a large crowd trying to impress each other.  It's sad the last 10 minutes and aftermath is the only thing that is going to be talked about after the Fair was such a blast for nearly 6 hours.  Music, street performers, vendors, kids getting their faces painted, food.... it was such a good time I had to go twice (early on with my son - who just wanted his face painted and a t-rex baloon and then was done with it - and returned later by myself to photograph).

So what can be done to help make sure this doesn't happen again?  The next fair is scheduled for July 24th.  I'll tell you right now, I don't believe that adding more police will or should be the solution.  It shouldn't have had to come to this, but maybe charging a small entrance fee and/or stipulating that no unsupervised minors will be allowed to enter the fair would alleviate things a bit.  Sadly, I think the damage is already done, and there will be a lot of families from beyond the CH borders that simply skip the event.

I don't know about that.  There were PLENTY of families that returned this year and it seemed that everyone had a good time.  The police presence on Conventry was excellent with at least one cop on foot at every corner and intersection.  It's a dilemna, because you don't want to kill what makes these fairs great.  I don't like the idea of an entrance fee and, if you make the kids have parents with them, then that will kill a lot of the spirit of the fair too.  One possible solution might be to shift the hours a bit.  Start it earlier and end it earlier (maybe 9-3 instead of 12-6).  Also, from JJ40's experience, it appears the traffic control leaving the Fair needs to be improved.

 

As far as kids from Heights, Shaker, Shaw, Glenville, Euclid, etc. having a fight or two when they congregate in one place, good luck.  That has been going on since well before I was in HS. 

 

Social media is not helping, but there is nothing we can do about that

The age requirement might work, though it would take a lot of people just to enforce that and you'd have some long queues.  I think additional police presence would help too, but that gets really expensive.  This is what happened to the 185th street fair.  Gang fights, then attempts to pay for extra security, then no more fair.  I don't understand it... I've been to much larger street parties in awful parts of Detroit and nothing like this ever happened.  These kids and their parents should be dealt with severely.

I'm now hearing multiple people swear to me they heard shots yesterday at the Fair and the chaos on cleveland.com has been extremely unreported. This thing is definitely going to go the way of the E185 and Slavic Village fairs.

And then there are people who are saying it is being blown out of proportion.  One of my friends had a stand at the fair and I just called him up for the details.  He said there was a fight just about closing time around Hampshire and Coventry which caused a gag of people to come screaming and running over hoping to see it (ever been in a school cafeteria when a fight breaks out?  Sorta like that).  He said it was mostly 13-15 year olds, if that.  But there was no 'riot' on Coventry according to him and he was there the entire time.  He heard no gunshots and hasn't talked to anyone who has.  What happened on Mayfield once Coventry was cleared could be another story.  I think it is safe (no pun intended) to say that if there really were gunshots (not fireworks, car backfire, etc.) that the PD would be all over it like white on rice.  If there is one thing we can trust from our paper is that it never passes on an opportunity to put something like that on the front cover.

 

Like I said, though, this is really taking away from the fact that the fair itself was a really good event.  Don't let a few knuckleheads acting crazy in the last 10 minutes of a 6 hour event drive you away.  I was there for 1 hour at the beginning and about an hour and half between 3:45-5:15.  There were TONS of people there and I did not see one shred of trouble.  I walked up and down the strip at least 3 times and over to the park, where kids of all different backgrounds were enjoying a nice day out and about.  I have the pictures to prove it.

 

I suppose the "don't let the terrorists" win mantra could be applied here. 

The PD's coverage is lazy.  They added a bunch of people's twitter comments with some people talking about gunshots.  I expect that the newspaper would fact check a reporter before saying there were gunshots and I would expect the same of any twitter comment they post online.  Some random person posting on twitter that they heard there were gunshots and the PD posting that comment is extremely irresponsible reporting. 

I don't know about that.  There were PLENTY of families that returned this year and it seemed that everyone had a good time.  The police presence on Conventry was excellent with at least one cop on foot at every corner and intersection.  It's a dilemna, because you don't want to kill what makes these fairs great.  I don't like the idea of an entrance fee and, if you make the kids have parents with them, then that will kill a lot of the spirit of the fair too.  One possible solution might be to shift the hours a bit.  Start it earlier and end it earlier (maybe 9-3 instead of 12-6).  Also, from JJ40's experience, it appears the traffic control leaving the Fair needs to be improved.

 

As far as kids from Heights, Shaker, Shaw, Glenville, Euclid, etc. having a fight or two when they congregate in one place, good luck.  That has been going on since well before I was in HS. 

 

Social media is not helping, but there is nothing we can do about that

 

I was really trying to think about what these kids bring to the table, how they make the fair better.  And I'm sorry, but I'm struggling to think of one reason why their presence makes it better in any way.  Do a little search on Twitter, and it becomes clear that they see its purpose a lot differently than you or I or the average family does.

 

I think it's naive to believe that each consecutive incident of bad press isn't affecting turnout.

Half the people at the fair were teenagers (of all backgrounds) walking around by themselves.  Take them away and the fair would have been much, much less vibrant.

 

I don't do twitter (outside of sports) so I don't know what you mean.  I know my purpose was to be out among a large crowd, enjoy the weather, maybe see some people I know, and listen to music.  I imagine the great majority of these kids had the same purpose.  Like I said before, they weren't causing any problems until the very end when a few bad apples spoiled the bunch.  Once things got started and the cops started really pushing people to leave, it surely was "show my a@$ time" and escalated from there.

 

I'm really not trying to sugar-coat anything, but I'm just really trying to get the point across that the fair (at least until the very end) was a perfect example of how people from all different demographics, races, faiths, etc. can come together and have a fun-loving time.  It's just too bad that this ruckus at the end is all people are going to talk about.

1500-2000 teenagers screaming, pushing, and fighting kids is far from a few bad apples, and when you look at other local events and festivals (St. Patty's day, last year's Coventry Arts fair, 185th and Slavic Village fairs, Flats Riverfest (or whatever it was called back then), and so on) that have been affected, really terrorized, by this very large and out-of-control group, then we have a serious epidemic in town. And our politicians, alleged newspaper, and alleged community leaders pretend it isn't an issue. It's sickening.

The last time I was in Coventry I actually thought the police presence was way overbearing.

 

I only go there maybe twice a month so I don't know.

 

Is there a sense that unruly jerk-behavior is on the rise?

 

^^You are just trusting the most extreme accounts.  Sounds like you are going from the Cleveland.bomb commenter who said that 1000 to 2000 kids just suddenly showed up at closing time like a flash mob.  That could have been the case, but it doesn't take away from the fact that many, many of these kids were there well prior to any trouble and were doing just what eveyone else was doing - walking around, listening to the music, watching the street performances.

 

And, trust me on this one, if there were 1500-2000 kids fighting (as you suggest) then we would have recieved more than a blurb in the local paper.  We would have been right up there with Vancouver from last week on CNN and every other major news network.  Are you being serious?  Here.... let me show you what maybe 100 people fighting looks like (and I'm pretty sure we saw nothing like this on Coventry yesterday)...

 

 

Ain't it funny how when these types of situations arise, all of a sudden the writings of the cleveland.bomb posters become gospel?  Nevermind the fact that these are arguably the sensationalist people in the city...

For those who might have some insight, is there any clue as to the purpose of these groups? Do they purposely gather en masse with the intent to destroy the festival with bad behavior, or is it just happenstance with rivals meeting up and starting to scrap as teens tend to do, and they meet up because these places attact other teens?

 

I ask specifically because I myself was part of things like this when I was in high school. But we didn't purposely go to something just to destroy the good times of other families, we went to meet and possibly confront other kids from rival schools, and fights eventually erupt. I think that behavior has been going on for a very long time ("rumble," anyone?) and is largely the result of kids not having anything to DO, so they just drive up and down the street and hang out or go to the bowling alley or the burger king and get into fights. I myself was arrested for inciting a riot at a fast food restaurant when I was in HS!

 

When I worked with our mayor and safety/service director in my home town to form a city council for kids (Kids Board we called it), the lack of teen-centric things to do was one of the things we worked hard to address, and we brought several teen-specific events to town that were attended in a very positive way. We also were in the process of setting up a place for teens to go after school so they could study and relax in a safe and fun environment because some kids just don't have a place to go like that - don't know if it actually happened as I graduated and left town. Maybe there needs to be some kind of kids board formed here?

RR.... YES!  I finally found somebody else who saw or participated in a fight or two when they were a teenager.  And I was beggining to think I was somewhat of an oddball ;)  I think your post pretty much nails it.  Their intent is NOT to ruin a family's good time, even if that is the effect.  These are kids from rival high schools all in one place.  I was in a HUGE fight back in the day at Shaker HS and one at my HS with the kids from Shaw.  Another one down on E 222 with the kids from Euclid.  And my friends and I had a thing with this wanna be bad a$$ crowd from Brush for years going all the way back to the St. Claire dances and St. Gregg's and St. MM festivals.  Point being, the fact that fights happen at these types of event should come as no surprise.

 

I think that social media has simply exploded over the past few years and now everyone know where everyone is at any given moment and people like a crowd.  Years ago, you would have heard about "how jumpin'" the Coventry Street Fair was after the fact.  Now, people are being urged to congregate and being fed info on whether so-and-so is there and so-and-so said this or that about your mamma.

I'm pretty sure the cleveland.com extremes are just that, extremes.  But even after filtering those out, this still sounds like more than a handful of kids misbehaving.  And as noted above this is hardly the first time we've had festivals disrupted in the very same way.  I remember plenty of fights in high school but nothing like these.  What's the point of ruining a festival if you can have your fight uninterrupted in a more private locale? 

 

I like R&R's idea about giving kids more to do.  Last year I worked on a summer jobs program that got a few thousand off the street.  But we had to turn away about 8,000 more applicants due to funding limits.  Many who did get job placements just stopped coming to work after a couple weeks (or days) and one kid literally said he was quitting so he could go "run the streets."  It's an uphill battle but one worth fighting.

Half the people at the fair were teenagers (of all backgrounds) walking around by themselves.  Take them away and the fair would have been much, much less vibrant.

 

I don't do twitter (outside of sports) so I don't know what you mean.  I know my purpose was to be out among a large crowd, enjoy the weather, maybe see some people I know, and listen to music.  I imagine the great majority of these kids had the same purpose.  Like I said before, they weren't causing any problems until the very end when a few bad apples spoiled the bunch.  Once things got started and the cops started really pushing people to leave, it surely was "show my a@$ time" and escalated from there.

 

I'm really not trying to sugar-coat anything, but I'm just really trying to get the point across that the fair (at least until the very end) was a perfect example of how people from all different demographics, races, faiths, etc. can come together and have a fun-loving time.  It's just too bad that this ruckus at the end is all people are going to talk about.

 

I know you're not trying to sugarcoat things.  I know that the event was mostly okay up until the end.  But I think there is a crowd control issue that needs to be addressed. 

 

As for Twitter, just type in the keyword "Coventry" in the search (this is what the PD staff did, by the way) and you'll find tons of gems.

 

 

Oh hell yes I participated in and saw plenty of fights, both in and out of school. I got sent to saturday school for like a month because I got into a fight with this chick and slammed her head into a locker. She tried to cut me with a bottle, which is why I did that, not that it matters. The story about the fast food place riot is real, though as an adult I'm pretty sure I wasn't formally arrested, just handcuffed, told a charge, and then taken to the station in a squad car so I could be released to my parents. I don't even think they read me my rights, it was just to get me out of there. They also alleged I had a knife and tried to get me in trouble for that (I did, but gave it to a friend) so they never had me on anything real besides starting a fight.

 

I agree that the advent of social media makes it much more obvious when and where these things are happening, but there was no shortage of kids when I was that age either and we didn't even have cell phones. There were limited places to go so people were either at A, B or C and not much else. Or we could go to the mall and act menacing, steal things and make fun of people. Not much has changed except there are more kids here and perhaps they are more quickly concentrated to particular areas given social media, but the problems and solutions remain the same. Better and more involved parenting, more things for kids to do so they are not idle and looking for trouble, increased security in places that are attractive to teens, etc.

RR.... YES!  I finally found somebody else who saw or participated in a fight or two when they were a teenager.  And I was beggining to think I was somewhat of an oddball ;)

 

Come on now Hts, I attended CH-UH schools for over a decade and did so even after you did, so of course I'm familiar with this type of behavior.  I never fought, but I occasionally got caught up in crowds that gathered round to see what was going on, so I can appreciate the excitement that is generated from an altercation.  That said, the groups as I remember them were always only a few dozen kids at most, never several hundred or thousand.  When you have what we had yesterday at the Coventry fair, it's a big problem and disruption to the event.  Even if the violence yesterday was relatively mild, there is the potential for things to spiral much further out of control.  To have these children congregate like that in such a large group is asking for trouble.

Larchmere Festival this Saturday from 10-5. I meant to go last year but was unable. Looking forward to it.

 

Might even enjoy a bottle of Shiraz and a piece of chocolate cake at Menu 6 that evening, it'll be a Larchmere-filled day.

^^Well, I guess you didn't read the last paragraph on my post about how this is a negative side-effect of social media? 

 

And there are no reports (outside of a tweet, maybe) of several thousand or even seven hundred kids actively fighting.  The eyewitness I spoke to said that there was one fight involving two kids on the strip and that caused a whole crowd of people to start running and screeming down the street.  I'm sure, in a crowd like that, when people started running towards the commotion, someone surely got pushed or felt like they were punched.  If you went to Heights High, then you know it took little more than a loud yell to make the whole cafeteria (at least the younger ones) swarm to one spot like locust, all screaming and yelling themselves.  So I can totally see how that happened and how it was 'percieved' as being a riot.

 

Also, like I said, when the cops started yelling and getting aggressive, I would suspect that is when things really got out of control because the mob mentality took over and you have probably what JJ40 saw along Mayfield.

Having worked concert security for a number of years, I agree with what Hts says - all it takes is a couple of people arguing to very quickly generate a huge crowd. When you add alcohol, drugs, teenage  hormones or a combination of any of the above to the mix, things can quickly get out of hand. I'm sure you've all been to concerts, probably most of you have been to a concert where there has been a fight somewhere, even one involving a large group of people. Most of the people are just very interested bystanders who want to rubberneck, and then a couple of dolts in the middle, and their friends, who have taken sides and might also be fighting, but compared to the total # of people, they're not all fighting just because they're a "pack" of people. It isn't possible to have the amount of security needed at a huge concert venue to be able to 100% any and all fights and to be able to instantly put a stop to anything that looks like its escalating to one, and that's not the goal of security either. The goal is to make it clear that people in charge are watching what's happening, patrolling regularly, and that they do have tools necessary to remove those who are causing others to have a good time, and when those occasions arise, do so quickly and with as little fuss as possible, while employing whatever force is necessary to remove those folks.

 

I would highly recommend that for street fairs like this, a security company like Tenable be employed. They work in conjunction with the police and are able to provide much more of a roaming "presence," one that is not as threatening as the police, like you're at some kind of police state event, but one that really helps to keep the peace and to identify problems as they arise and assist in putting those problems to a quick end.

I saw the same thing that JJ40 saw, both along Mayfield and Euclid Heights.  These mobs were blocking traffic and there were a couple of smaller fistfights that I personally witnessed (involving anywhere from 5-7 kids) that the cops worked quickly to break up.  As for hundreds of kids actively fighting?  No, that's almost certainly untrue.  But that swarming/mob-like effect pushing its way towards the action can itself be dangerous and intimidating, especially for bystanders who want nothing to do with any of it.  Maybe it's just me, but I see such types of mobs of people as a problem and something that should be prevented if at all possible.

See, I don't think that extra security or police is the right solution.  I think that prevention is.  How do you do that?  Well, I laid out a few ideas earlier that will inconvenience everyone attending.  Sad that this is even necessary simply because there are so many punks that were raised by parents who didn't teach them how to behave like civilized human beings.  But in my opinion, if this fair is to continue, it's what has to happen.

You can't prevent that kind of activity without the presence of authority. It's just not going to happen. That's spitting into the wind IMO. Security at events like this is a GIVEN. Can you imagine a concert with no security? You even have to have security at a WEDDING at most venues, it's required. Where large groups of people congregate, even well meaning adults, there can be problems. I think there's a big difference between security and the police, they are interpreted differently by those in attendance.