A Halloween event at Kings Dominion theme park in Virginia devolved into “mass chaos” as hundreds of teens brawled over the weekend.
Sgt. Steve Wills of the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that as many as 300 people were caught up in the brawl, which initially began as a “fight inside the arcade.”
“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,” Wills told the outlet.
Kings Dominion said in a statement that the fight happened while rides and attractions were “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.”
Sheriff Wills said that a “handful of people” were fighting as hundreds of people surrounded it and egged it on. When the fight moved outside, chaos broke out when someone screamed, “gun.”
“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 said.
“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,” he added.
Wills also lamented that it has become a “social norm” for younger generations to engage in this kind of chaos.
“We as parents, as a society, have got to do better to raise these kids to be respectful and have manners,” Wills told Fox News. “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.”
Mass brawls at beloved theme parks have become viral sensations in recent years. In 2023, two families brawled at Walt Disney World over an alleged disagreement about taking a picture, which was at least the third viral brawl to erupt at one of the Disney parks since 2019.
Another viral brawl occurred at Disney World in July 2022 near Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom. The incident reportedly began after a guest from one family pushed a member of another family while the two waited in line at Mickey’s PhilharMagic.
