Memphis Flash Mob Assaults 'Not Hate Crime'

Sept. 10, 2014
Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said the assaults on three people Saturday night at a Kroger parking lot will not be classified as a hate crime.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said the assaults on three people Saturday night at a Kroger parking lot will not be classified as a hate crime, though he's been "inundated" by calls and emails from people expressing "displeasure toward the Police Department and displeasure toward me personally."

A fight at the Cici's Pizza near Highland and Poplar between "two groups of African-American females spilled out onto the parking lot," Armstrong said of the genesis of the assaults. "It turned into a flash mob. There were African-American victims to this as well."

On a widely circulated video, a crowd of teenagers is seen streaming across the lot before surrounding and kicking a Kroger worker. In the background, a woman can be heard exclaiming, "They got a white dude."

At a news conference Tuesday, Armstrong said 11 juveniles have been arrested in the assaults and the investigation continues. He pointed out that the police don't determine charges, which prompted Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich to explain, "Current civil rights intimidation law is not covered by the facts as we know them on the Kroger parking lot."

"You have to show that the civil rights of someone was violated because of their skin color or other classifications," she said.

The incident escalated into a four-victim crime, Armstrong said. A woman who had driven her daughter to Cici's wasn't beaten, but her car was vandalized, he said.

Weirich said parents who watched the video should use it as a moment to teach their children to call police instead of pressing record.

"I've seen that video, it sickens me," Armstrong said. "It sickens me because my mother frequents that parking lot at the Plaza. It could have very easily been an elderly person (victimized), could very easily have escalated beyond an assault."

He said the fight between girls meeting at Cici's was the only planned element. "With social media and kids, they just send out a blast and communicate with literally hundreds of people in a matter of seconds."

As he has in previous comments about the case, Armstrong blamed parents for the out-of-control teen mob.

"We're talking about parenting. I think it's just unacceptable for a parent of a teenager, a 15-year-old, to not know where your kid is at all times."

The mother described as the fourth victim had taken her daughter to Cici's and "basically stated that she didn't feel good about the whole thing, and that's why she didn't leave" her teen, Armstrong said. When she did try to drive away, he said, "her car was attacked and vandalized. She's an African-American lady."

Weirich credited "great police work" for the 11 arrests.

"They're doing a bunch of phenomenal work," Armstrong said of police, citing "hours and hours of interviewing, checking leads, rechecking leads.

"The only thing we had starting this was a video. We had what you had," he told reporters.

Copyright 2014 - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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