Is this gang thing happening in your Town Centre?

[GangsinTown]

I’m really concerned. There are gangs of young people dressed in black with hoods and caps that are frequently in our Town Centre going into McDonalds and KFC late at night trashing the place for no reason. I’m talking throwing tables and chairs, smashing windows creating as much carnage as possible.

My son works at McD’s and this has happened twice in the last month. His friend who works on the other side of town in KFC has also experienced this. It’s just happened again tonight and my son’s manager was punched in the face whilst pushing a thug out to lock the door to protect people inside. Customers are terrified asking to hide behind the counter.

He said it happens everywhere because these are young teens (under 16) who think they’re untouchable from the law because of their age, they record it on their phones then post it all over social media - mainly Tik Tok for kudos.

I’m now terrified for my son going to work. We live in a small town, it’s not a large or capital city where maybe you’d expect higher crimes rates.

Yes. I'm in Kent and it's quite bad where we are. McDonald's has a security guard or two, even during weekdays. People have been stabbed.

They're wrong there, they can still be arrested but their parents have to be informed and they can only be interviewed etc in the presence of an "appropriate adult".

It might change things a bit if the police were to run them in, lock them up and keep them for a while before cautioning them.

I live in a small town, doesn’t have a McDonalds but I went out the other night to collect a takeaway and felt really intimidated by massive groups of teenagers everywhere when I was walking to and from my car. Shouting and swearing, fighting, smashing glass bottles and kicking the doors of the shopfronts. I don’t really go out at night much but I always thought it was a pretty nice town so I was quite shocked.

What is going on with this country!

Our police did have success with threatening loss of houses as most are council homes, so they worked together and basically threatened eviction

I don't have a fast food place locally but my road leads to the local shop and the community centre

Nothing new under the sun. In my youth the wreckers were mods and rockers (in town) In our backwoods, it was the Young Farmers (drunk again).

20 years later in small coastal town where we were waiting for pub lunch to be served it was "fishermen off the boats, we're used to it".. smiling explanation by pub staff of drunk hooligan vandalism yards from us.

I replied " We're not: and we're leaving".

Yes. I'm NE England. I haven't seen it personally because I never go anywhere but a friend who is in the police was talking about this same thing happening in our circle centre.

@LakieLady "I doubt if they'll get it on traffic grounds, as the area is frequently gridlocked."

I thought same in the town I live in; but no. McD's built on one of the main, gridlocked roads with a drive-thru. Objections all round were ignored. Including the objections for a 24 hour opening. Another McD's is about 1 mile away too.

What do people honestly expect? This has been a growing issue for years, but now it's affecting NIMBYs, people don't like it.

No boundaries, no punishments, no responsibility, excuse upon excuse thrown out - single parent, no male influence, nothing for them to do.

We've got a massive issue with youth, arguing over post codes and areas, their 'turf', stabbing one another to 'defend' it. Can't deal with them legally, not enough police or resources, racism claims, constant battling of teachers or other peers who try to deal with behaviour.

Then there's drugs. County lines, kids as the drugs runners because the likelihood of them being stopped/searched are minimal. Why work for NMW when you can sell cocaine to middle aged City workers (for example) who don't give a shit about the crime, trafficking, violence behind it. Same for the people who claim 'nothing wrong with weed'.

It’s happening in Birmingham. My family member has a couple of small shops in different areas and 2/3 of them have been subjected to this kind of thing. Teens smashing up the shop, assaulting staff, throwing things, making serious threats. All in black and most faces covered by balaclavas etc. all 17 and under

my family member has been assaulted 3 times now and had to transfer to a different shop. Police have been useless.

There's a McD's drive through on the edge of the town centre in East Grinstead. At certain times, the queue is so long that it tails back along the A22 and causes massive hold ups. I can't believe the planners thought it was a good place to put a drive-through takeaway.

I drive through there around once a month, and to avoid the congestion, I take a convoluted route all through tiny lanes to avoid a 15-20 minute delay.

Never seen any gangs of marauding youths in the vicinity though.

We had a stabbing outside McDonalds about a week ago, usual thing of 15/16 year old gangs fighting before it spilled outside and one of them was stabbed. It's pretty usual now in a lot of places, I certainly am more fearful of gangs of kids if I'm out at night than I am of lone or small groups of adult men. The child gangs seem to have no fear of the consequences of their actions and are disproportionate in their use of violence. What I mean by that is, while we're told to fear attacks by adult men, with the youth gangs it's more unpredictable and often for no particular reason other than they think it makes them cool.

I (as a young, car-less female) often frequented A10 MDs as a teen in early 00s but unless I was extremely naive, it was definitely all relatively broke, 17-22 year old car "enthusiasts". I imagine extremely annoying, but definitely not gangland when I was there.

My friends boyfriend was a vehicle owner, which is how I found myself living the life of glamour...

Sometimes we'd defect to Southend if everyone had enough petrol money. Basildon MDs also full of souped up cars on a weekend evening.

I'm in a small town really just a village around here they just light the scate park on fire, throw bricks at the buses and houses and break in when they feel up to it

It's terrible out there.. Is this a result of lack of discipline? We're thinking of moving very rural soon.

Indeed.

Where are the parents?
Is there any press coverage?
Where are the police?

Too bloody soft on the scumbags.

how low can society go?

They should never have got rid of national service and respect.

Its happening everywhere. This is what happens when you remove cultural values from children, deprive their parents of dignity and food, and tell the police they have to be woke and considerate of everyone's feelings. We reep what we sow I'm affraid.

Its much worse if you have boys, even sensible boys who keep thesmeves to themselves. They just need to rub someone up the wrong way, a disrespectful tone, a foolish word, and the knives come out and someone's kid doesn't go home.

I don't understand why parents are not arrested and detained for a child carrying a knife. If a child has a knife, why not arrest the monther and father, and take the rest of the kids into care. Until we send a message to the mothers and fathers of these children, they will continue to kill, and occassionally an innocent child gets caught up in it and loses their life too.

I'd suggest we also need to stop glorifying them in the press. Stop the parents holding press conferences talking about their darling little sweet boys who just git in with the wrong crowds. The Police are not allowed to say how or why because they are children, and the parents tell whatever story best suits their image of a wholesome family life and good parenting. So maybe stop the clown show and just post photos and obit's in the papers.

Luckily I don't have a son. I worry for the future my daugher will see though.

Maybe the coming war in Europe will give us the chance to test that theory.

Police numbers were slashed by the tories over the last ten years. They have started going back up but presumably will take years to restore.

Parents don't care
Police get attacked too. One year they were on my street sheltering as they were being bombarded with fireworks thrown at them
They even threw a firework in a car with a baby in, and in the local shop

Kids can walk around with knives. You can't get done for it. Yes, you can get told off, and someties have to pick up rubbish in the park, but why would kids care about a bit of community service?

Yes there are laws on the books, but if the law is not prosecuted by the CPS the defacto state of affairs is there is no law against carrying knives.

If there were an immediate detention without bail for carrying a knife, as in the children went straight from the Police station to the remand centre, and there was no bail until the case was heard, and the only question to be proven was whether or not the knid=fe was in the posession of the child, and that was an immediate 5 year sentence, we would have no knife crime problem amiong our youth.

We have as much stabbings and dead children as we are willing to accept. If we wanted fewer, there would be fewer. Society thus far has not yet decided that we have too many. When we do decide too many are dying we'll put a stop to it.

You really have to wonder why the parents of these children allowed their children to mix with people who kill them. Like, you live in a neighbourhood with drug gangs hanging around on the streets outside, you stop your kid going out, and if you can't figure out how to do that, you get out. You move. If a parent can move half way around the world for a chance of a better life in the UK, you cant tell me you can't move to somewhere else inthe country to save your child's life.

In Glasgow and Edinburgh they are stopping bus services because buses are being attacked. Good on them. Cut the ghettos off and let the locals deal with their feral youth. There were mass burnings of cars and bins in these areas for New Years.

If parents want to live like that in ghetto, let them. If they want to move they can, but my guess is they don't want to move, and the men in the house are the kids running rampant in the streets burning cars and throwing bricks through bus windows.

lol, do you really think national service is the answer?

How about reinstating funding for youth workers, youth centres, children's and youth mental health services, Sure Start, etc. Whilst pensioners have had their pensions and services triple-locked and inflation proofed it's been paid for by withdrawing wholesale support for anyone else.

We have as much stabbings and dead children as we are willing to accept

This really gets to the heart of it.

This was a record I kept from 2021 that I still have on my phone (the police asked me to keep it) and was just a snapshot of a couple of weeks

18/02 17.40 throwing mud at windows
9/03 17.00 banging on window
11/03 15.30 banging on window
13/03 15.44 threw stuff at windows (2 on bikes, male, both with hoods up, one black puffa jacket, one bright blue puffa jacket)
13/03 15.50 banging on windows

I can't move for other reasons but it's so fucking annoying, they come in my garden and pound on the patio doors. Got CCTV up and I sent it all to the police but they're all hoods up/balaclavas so hard to tell who it is, although the police often know them as it's the same group of kids with fuck all better to do

They complain there's nothing to do, then wreck the community centre
I don't care if they hang around outside mine provided they stop being dicks