Douglasville police announced Tuesday that 10 people, mostly teenagers, have been arrested and face a variety of charges after a gang-related fight broke out at Arbor Place Mall earlier this year.
Officers responded to a large fight happening outside of the movie theater entrance at the mall Jan. 2, a Douglasville police statement said.
“We were able to identify 10 of the individuals involved in this assault and robbery,” Douglasville police Chief Gary Sparks said.
According to the agency’s announcement, the investigation continues and could result in additional arrests.
Of the 10 people arrested, eight are from Douglas County and two are from Louisiana. Charges have been taken out on the two people from out of state and they are awaiting extradition, Sparks said.
About a month earlier, another fight at Arbor Place Mall led to a shooting, though no one was injured, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Security footage showed two women physically fighting, at some point causing a gun to fire, Douglasville police said. Both women fled the mall and no one was hit by the gunfire, but one injury was reported after someone fell while running away, the AJC reported.
Douglasville police said the group fighting on Jan. 2 was involved in a local gang called RSL that started when most of its members attended Yeager Middle School.
“Now, a few years later, representing the same gang and carrying that same gang mentality, this group has transitioned legally into a criminal street gang by committing serious crimes against the community in furtherance of their gang,” Douglasville police Lt. Ken Winklepleck said.
“The signs of this particular gang’s existence and the mindset of its members were evident before this latest incident,” Winklepleck said. “The police investigation revealed that prior to the Jan. 2, 2021 incident, some of the gang members had been posting pictures and videos of their activities and their gang affiliation on their social media pages.”
According to the department’s announcement, Douglasville experienced its first gang-related shooting in 2007 and, in response, police began to proactively target criminal street gangs in the area. In 2015, Douglas County received national attention when prosecutors indicted 15 members of a Confederate heritage group called Respect the Flag on criminal gang charges, The New York Times reported. To date, Douglasville police have arrested dozens and helped prosecute more than 100 gang members, Sparks said.
“Charging young people is the last resort,” Sparks said. “We want to get them on the front end with Youth Against Violence and educate young men and women about the downfalls of being involved in criminal activity.”
The Youth Against Violence program is an eight-week course designed to direct teens away from criminal activity. The program has been on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Sparks expects to resume the program this spring, the release said.
Aside from Arbor Place, other malls and shopping centers around Atlanta have seen a rise in violent crime. In November, a massive fight involving about 300 teenagers took place at Atlantic Station. In December, a 7-year-old girl was fatally shot in her family’s car near Phipps Plaza after a man fired a gun following a fight in the mall’s parking lot, according to police.
That same month, Lenox Square installed weapons detectors at its main entrance after an “unprecedented and entirely unacceptable” crime wave, according to the property’s manager, Robin Suggs. Lenox has seen multiple shootings in the past year, one of which was fatal, and other violent crimes like robbery and carjacking.
Arrests have been made in many of the shootings, including both fatal incidents at Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza.
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