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A boy was set upon by a rival group of local teenagers in the food court of the Broadway shopping centre on Wednesday evening, with an innocent shopper hit with a chair in the violent melee.
Footage posted online shows at least eight boys aged 15 to 18 armed with chairs and stools and riding e-bikes and scooters in the inner-west mall that was busy with people doing their Christmas shopping. The youths are captured swearing and making offensive gestures towards the boy, who fled down a nearby escalator with a teenage girl.
One woman was caught in the confrontation, struck in the back by a chair thrown at the escalator by one of the boys.
Leichhardt Police Area Command Crime Manager Grant Watson said the altercation was a “chance encounter” between rival groups from the Glebe and Waterloo areas, which officers have been monitoring for several months before the confrontation at 5.50pm on Wednesday.
“We have been working very closely with those groups to resolve this issue,” Watson said.
“It’s appalling that it has spilled over into the shopping centre at Broadway, where people were just going about their business.”
The chairs used as weapons by the boys then fell to a lower level of the shopping centre, threatening the safety of shoppers below.
“The incident occurred on the first level, so there was one level down, and they threw the chairs and I do believe some may have gone down to the bottom level,” Watson said. “Had that hit someone, it could’ve been a grave injury to them.”
The teens then made a swift escape from the shopping centre. Watson said those with bikes and scooters weren’t present during the initial confrontation, and only arrived after the altercation began.
Both the group and the boy they had targeted had left the shopping centre before police arrived. The majority of the teenagers have been identified by police, and are expected to be charged in relation to the incident.
No injuries were reported, and police continue to investigate the incident.
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