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Philly Answers Youth Flash Mobs With Curfew Enforcement
Not that it's the first city to enforce a youth curfew, and not that kids on a crime-spree is the only variety of moral panic offered as a rationale, but Philadelphia is cracking down through increased enforcement of a youth curfew law after children and teenagers attacked two people in the Center City district — attacks which, according to police, were coordinated via text messaging.
And in this case, it wasn't really a flash mob at all, it was just a gang of hoodlums.
This story doesn't seem relevant to this site at all to me.
As a Philadelphian, I can vouch that a flash mob in Philly is not the same thing as a flash mob that you see on AT&T advertising campaigns. While a flash mob may make you think of a bunch of people dancing in unison to some obscure pop culture reference in a large public area, a Philadelphia flash mob is a band of nearly feral minority teenagers whose parent wants to get their drink on and expels them for the night from their section 8 houses in North Philadelphia. They then flood down in droves to the Center City business district and Old City/South Street area, where they attack people at random.
I am sorry if that comes off as bitter and slightly racist. I was involved in one of these on South Street a few months ago...the fear you feel is absolutely indescribable when you realize that kids as young as 10 were raised in a way where they feel assaulting and robbing people at random is an acceptable Saturday night activity.