The [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_Garden_State_Plaza"]Westfield Garden State Plaza[/URL], one of the largest malls in the U.S., was host to the Mall Mile yesterday night.
The Mall Mile is essentially a mile ran in the mall; completely unsanctioned by the mall itself, and done at a random time each year. Me and three of my other friends from track went there last night.
The event itself generally pits athletes:
[IMG]http://hssn-media.advance.net/NJ.com/news/db1c536aaa027ac799329013ba41e481/btrk sect2.jpg[/IMG]
against mall cops:
[IMG]http://www.entertainmentspectrum.com/images/movies/mall-cop.jpg[/IMG]
Well, anyway, here's how it went for us:
I got picked up around 6:30 and we made it over a few minutes before it started. We drove into the mall parking lot and, lo' and behold, there's a massive group of anywhere between 80-90 kids in a huge huddle, jumping up and down in the fucking [I]freezing[/I] air. We all dressed in pretty stupid outfits, that's half the idea; girls wore sports bras and short-shorts, and guys wore track shorts and crazy T-shirts. I had my track shorts on and I was wearing facepaint.
One of my friends had this Justin Bieber T-shirt on with the sleeves cut off and a Spongebob headband and arm-band. We'll refer to him as Bieber.
[IMG]http://i53.tinypic.com/5p3ptu.png[/IMG]
One had this Burger King shirt on, again, with the sleeves cut off. He'll be the King.
[IMG]http://www.teesnthings.com/productimages/commercial-t-shirts/burger-king-tee-shirt.jpg[/IMG]
The third friend was wearing a plain T-shirt. We'll just call him Mike.
So we're all in the little huddle, jumping up and down, and we're just talking and shit, getting ready and planning what to do. We all agree to meet back here when it's all over, which was pretty fucking dumb, since we already made our presence known and later on we'd have a hard time getting back to our cars. Anyway, we start moving toward the mall as a pack and enter near California Pizza Kitchen. Everyone's pretty much jogging, we were pretty innocuous, nobody was doing anything remotely malicious, well, besides being a huge mass of moving people jogging through a mall. So we start running, picking up the pace, and my friends and I had all agreed to follow Bieber so we wouldn't get separated if anything happened. The group is moving pretty smoothly, and I'm watching how people are reacting. Some people find it very amusing, others are horrified at the sight. I felt pretty bad for anyone with a stroller or small kids; although we didn't so much as touch them, they must've been terrified for their kids. :(
So we pass through a good amount of the mall, and there's people tripping all over the place and shit, and someone shouts to run; the Mall Cops had been released. Surprisingly coordinated, they were stationed near the entrance to the AMC Theater. We're passing by, and we see one rather large one block off the path in front of us. I was near the front of the group and I was running alongside Bieber, with the King and Mike following close behind us. The mall cop that blocked off our path was holding out one arm at head-height and one kid ran into it and nearly did a backflip. Here's what it was like:
The guy on the left is actually the guy who blocked us off. He's [I]not[/I] small.
[IMG]http://i55.tinypic.com/kyl35.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i53.tinypic.com/2db30cn.png[/IMG]
We had taken a left to avoid him, and this is what it ended up like:
[IMG]http://i53.tinypic.com/zivqe8.png[/IMG]
The blue are the mall cops, the green is me, the gray is Bieber, and the tan is anybody else who was running with us. We were on the second floor moving across one of those overpass things, pretty much getting trapped, and the group itself was getting spread out pretty thin. Nearly everybody managed to squeeze past those guards, including everybody in my group. However, as I'm running, I see Bieber get grabbed, but he throws his arm to the left and breaks free. I keep running, full speed ahead. At this point, everyone was trying to just get out. We run into the escalator by the AMC Theater and sprint down, into the parking garage, and out into the open air, but now, outside, there's actually real cops moving around, following the runners, so we all disperse into smaller groups into different areas. I have no clue where anybody I came with was, and I ended up with four other kids on the second floor of the parking garage. These fucktards all decided to go back into the mall for a second run. I'm not sure what happened to them, but I didn't follow.
I run back to where the cars were, keeping in the dark areas, and see there's around three cop cars just driving around that area, maybe taking license plates down. I meet up with three other kids there, one idiot girl who will later get caught by literally walking into a cop car, and two guys from Tenafly. Only one of them thought to bring his cell phone with him and I couldn't remember any of my friend's numbers. So we're sitting in that area for a while, running back and forth between two areas whenever a cop car showed up at the other. Meanwhile, we see other kids running all around sprinting in the parking lots surrounding, trying to get to their cars to get out. None of these kids I was with were able to avoid being caught, and even the guy that took charge and directed us around managed to get stopped.
I eventually ran into Mike in the parking lot area, he was alone, lost his group when they had dispersed to get away. We see that the area around our car is clear, and we run up to it and it's locked. We sit between the two cars, hiding, and wait. Eventually, we see the King, who's also the one who has the keys, running across to us. He gets by us and unlocks the doors, we all hop inside. We find out that the King had been sitting in a ditch for around half an hour. Nice.
We start talking, and since the King and Mike were behind me during the run, I find out that when Bieber was grabbed and got away, he actually got knocked down a few seconds after recovering and got arrested.
We drive to Wendy's, wash off the facepaint, and drive back to the mall to re-enter in normal clothes. We run into a group of girls from our school walking around and ask one of them to go into the security office and ask where her friend was, pretending to say that she was there to give him a ride. We find out he was hauled off to the police department, presumably charged for resisting arrest. He's only 17, so he got off with just his parents getting a call to pick him up. At that point, we left and grabbed something to eat.
EDIT: Here's a video of the actual event, not me recording, but you can see one of my buddies at one point in the video..
[editline]11th December 2010[/editline]
tl;dr
We ran in a mile in a mall. One of my friends got arrested.
Aww, I could of went, I live like 10 minutes away.
Sounds silly to be arrested for running in a mall.
Why?
[QUOTE=DarkSpider;26627885]Why?[/QUOTE]
Why not?
Wait, so they arrested you and sent you to the police station because you were running? Sorry if I don't believe your bullshit.
I enjoyed reading that.
We tried something like this at our mall back during high school. It had similar results, except nobody got arrested and the mall security didn't chase us. It was a pretty good rush though.
[QUOTE=Lust;26627957]Wait, so they arrested you and sent you to the police station because you were running? Sorry if I don't believe your bullshit.[/QUOTE]
Malls have rules too, and a group of 80-90 kids running through a mall is a bit of a public disturbance. Not even that, but a cop tells you to stop, you keep running, and I'm sure it's some form of resisting arrest.
When you're in a mall, everything you do is a public disturbance. Me and my friends still want to do some sort of flash mob at a mall by us.
Man, that sounds like fun. Someone in my town should organize one of these.
I can't wait for the Chocolate Milk Mile; chug a glass of chocolate milk every 400m, don't throw up, pure bliss.
This story is like a paratrooper on D-Day who landed and lost his squad with people getting taken out right and left of him, good read
[QUOTE=DarkSpider;26627885]Why?[/QUOTE]
It's a Jersey thing.
dammit i'm like 30 minutes away, I wanted to go.
I enjoy large groups of harmless chaos like this.
[img]http://wtv-zone.com/Tspace/Braveheart/mel_2.jpg[/img]
FOR FREEDOM!
[QUOTE=Downsider;26628116]Malls have rules too, and a group of 80-90 kids running through a mall is a bit of a public disturbance. Not even that, but a cop tells you to stop, you keep running, and I'm sure it's some form of resisting arrest.[/QUOTE]
Big difference between a mall cop and a real cop. A real cop has authority, a mall cop in some states can't even fight you if you decide to fight him.
[QUOTE=Downsider;26627677]
done at a random time each year.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Downsider;26627677]
been happening around the same time for the last two years
[/QUOTE]
wait, what?
[QUOTE=darkrei9n;26637951]Big difference between a mall cop and a real cop. A real cop has authority, a mall cop in some states can't even fight you if you decide to fight him.[/QUOTE]
They called in real cops as well, hence why my friend got arrested. And I dunno what kind of mall cops you're talking about; these guys were hard-boiled mall cops who don't play by the rules.. It actually got a little violent, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did break a rule or two, even though there was no outright fighting.
[QUOTE=chugmuffin;26637979]wait, what?[/QUOTE]
My bad, I should've wrote that it happens [i]around[/i] the same time every year.
Damn, if I knew this was happening I would have went as I am like 20 minutes away
That made my night, and makes me want to be there next time. (or maybe ill do my own at Mall-Of-America)
[QUOTE=areolop;26639660]That made my night, and makes me want to be there next time. (or maybe ill do my own at Mall-Of-America)[/QUOTE]
such a terrible idea, it's fucking huge plus it has four main entrances, not smaller secondary ones, you'd be trapped and fucked in minutes.
not to mention actual cops are there 24/7
well, you could make a quick dash from Macy's, cut through nickelodeon universe and exit at Bloomingdales
Holy shit that looks like fun!
There were a lot of kids with cameras, I might be able to get some pictures and post them up on Monday, they're not on Facebook yet.
Sounds like some kind of plot for the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
[QUOTE=Lust;26627957]Wait, so they arrested you and sent you to the police station because you were running? Sorry if I don't believe your bullshit.[/QUOTE]
You try running in a crowded mall for about 30 minutes. Chances are you'll hurt someone by running into them or the mall security will do their job and prevent that from happening.
I don't get what you would be arrested for. What law were you breaking? No running?
Man that sounds fun
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