Believe the Hype About Teen Takeovers - The Atlantic

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They usually start with a harmless-looking social-media post: a call for teenagers to “pull up” and “shake some ass,” as one online flyer put it. These get forwarded across the internet, and soon masses of young people are surging into an urban plaza or park, often terrifying any adult who happens to be nearby. Teen takeovers can be “amazing,” like an outdoor street party, I was told by one 17-year-old named Jaden who said he had attended many of them—“but only until the fighting starts.”<br>The fighting is what has made teen takeovers so polarizing in recent months. In Washington, D.C., they gained a new prominence in May, after a scuffle broke out in a Chipotle in the Navy Yard neighborhood. Within seconds, it flared into a violent rumble, with a group of young men in black hoodies throwing punches and hurling wooden high chairs at one another. The other customers cowered in the corners, while crowds formed at the windows outside, shrieking and recording the scene on their phones. By the time the police arrived, the combatants had fled and melted into a thick crowd of other young people in the darkness outside.<br>The phrase teen takeover became popular several years ago, when they began taking place in Chicago, Atlanta, Tampa, and a few other cities. The Chipotle brawl lasted less than a minute, and no one was seriously hurt. But its ferocity led right-wing broadcasters and influencers to start talking about a new kind of urban lawlessness enabled by liberal social policies. “Teen takeovers are plaguing Democrat-run cities across the country, including the nation’s capital,” reported The Daily Wire. Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah has invoked “violence by teenage gangs” as a reason to withdraw D.C.’s right to govern itself. Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social in May: “Teen takeover in Chicago. Five officers badly hurt. Mayor and governor are terrible. Should call for help!”<br>Clips of the Chipotle fight were shared tens of thousands of times, usually with pointed commentary urging the authorities to crack down hard. Some have tried: In May, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, promised to “aggressively prosecute parents” of teenagers involved in takeovers (an idea that has been championed by liberals for the parents of children who commit gun crimes). The Chicago City Council drafted, but did not pass, an ordinance that would also allow the police to charge parents.<br>Some observers—especially on the left—dismiss the recent rush of commentary as vaguely racist media hype, or as the latest chapter in society’s vain effort to quell the permanent volcano of adolescence. “We are sensationalizing teenagers, often lower-income children of color,” Kristin Henning, the director of Georgetown Law School’s Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative, said in an interview with NPR in May.<br>Quinta Jurecic: The coming D.C. crime boomerang<br>But after a few weeks of hanging around in D.C.’s takeover zones, I came to believe that something a little more troubling is going on, at least in some places. The people who are closest to the problem—parents, security guards, local businesspeople, and community activists—say that the current generation of teens is growing up in a world where truancy is far more common and where the isolation imposed by the coronavirus pandemic and social media has left a legacy of frustration.<br>“Some things changed in our society during that year or two we were all locked up—some of us moved on, others not,” Emeka Moneme, an urban planner and the president of the business-improvement district in the Navy Yard, where many of D.C.’s takeovers have taken place, told me. “These kids think they can perform in everybody’s space, and it’s taking a toll. There may be a perception problem, but there’s also a real problem, and we need to do something about it.”<br>One night on U Street, I got my own little taste of the takeover experience when a huge crowd of very young-looking people began running back and forth, seemingly playing cat and mouse with a group of police officers who were shouting for them to go home. One subgroup of teenagers went racing down the street I was on, shouting and smashing into people, and a girl who looked about 14 years old stopped and began jabbing me in the gut with her fingers.<br>“Hey, take it easy,” I said, fending her off as gently as I could. “How old are you?”<br>She stared back at me, glassy-eyed. “I’m drunk as fuck,” she said.<br>This was pretty mild stuff, as takeovers go. In February, hundreds of teenagers stormed a mall in the Bronx as store and restaurant managers hid behind locked doors. In Chicago, two violent takeovers took place on successive days over Memorial Day weekend, with crowds of teenagers battling the police; more than 50 people were arrested.<br>Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service / Getty<br>Officers attempt to disperse a group during a “teen takeover,” in...