In a Flash, a Mob Invaded South Orange

By LOIS DESOCIO

In 2003, a group of people gathered at the Toys ‘R Us in Times Square and jointly stared at a giant electronic toy Tyrannosaurus Rex, then dropped to the floor and started screaming. Rob Walker, in an Aug. 4, 2003 article in The New York Times Magazine, called the incident part of “a fad.” But Mr. Walker also noted it was a “fad worth paying attention to.”

His take on the “flash mobs,” that it was all in fun, was prevalent for about seven years. As he described it, it was an assembly of the “well-wired folks who gather suddenly, perform some specific but innocuous act, then promptly scatter.” In 2003, “well-wired” pretty much meant cell phones, pagers and Web sites.

Today, we are much more connected and faster at sending information — or rally cries. Twitter, Facebook, foursquare and text messaging allow for anyone to send messages to everyone in minutes. And, in turn, the scene has become less benign and “innocuous.”

A front-page article in The New York Times on March 24 by Ian Urbina on flash mobs in Philadelphia noted that these days the gatherings “have taken on a more aggressive and raucous turn.” And now the trend has spread to the suburbs — specifically, our suburbs.

By all appearances, the incident on Saturday, March 20, where perhaps as many as 500 young people suddenly gathered on the streets of South Orange, was part of this new phenomenon of flash mobs gone wild.

The event was noted in Mr. Urbina’s article, which also mentioned a similar fiasco in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Nov. 3, when mobs and violence marked the technology-generated gathering of thousands of young people in Brooklyn for a wings special at a restaurant chain (the chain was the victim, not the perpetrator).

After a similar event took place in South Orange on Saturday — an unseasonably warm night after a long, hard winter — it took a while for people to really process what had happened.

Even a long thread on Maplewood Online reflects the first impressions, which were of something disturbing, but not necessarily planned.

The Local reached out to South Orange Board of Trustees Member Michael Goldberg, who is the liaison for the newly formed Citizen’s Public Safety Advisory Committee, which held its first meeting Tuesday. Mr. Goldberg answered some questions on the incident in an e-mail:

Did local officials think “flash mob” when first hearing of the incident?

I cannot speak for everyone else, but personally, when I first heard about this, I didn’t think “Flash Mob” and just presumed it was a repeat of the issues we experienced last summer, which resulted in large numbers of teenagers in the downtown.

I know at the Board of Trustees meeting this week, there were discussions of curfews, etc., but is it fair to say, no one yet realized that this was part of this flash mob trend, which usually happens in cities?

By Monday, we were very aware that word of this gathering spread very quickly on Facebook. I am still reluctant to use the term “Flash Mob,” which I have usually attributed to “performances,” as in the following video clip.

Will changes be made in how the Village and the police monitor social media?

All that being said, there is no question that the lack of a visible police presence encouraged the teens to rapidly spread the word using social media. As a result, the police will be monitoring social media and will proactively be a visible presence.

I see you are the liaison for the Citizen’s Public Safety Advisory Committee. Is there any new information?

As I stated at the Board of Trustees meeting Monday night, the Board and police chief have discussed this issue numerous times over the past few months and were prepared to proactively ensure our downtown was family-friendly, with a combination of a visible police presence in conjunction with weekend evening family-friendly music concerts. Unfortunately, the unseasonably warm weather in March caught the police off-guard, which allowed this situation to rapidly escalate.

At Tuesday’s citizen’s public safety meeting, the public expressed their concerns and anger directly to the chief and I am hopeful that the chief has now heard the concerns of the residents (and the Board) loud and clear. The chief has always had the latitude to do whatever it takes, within the law, to protect the community, and I am optimistic that a more proactive approach will now be utilized to ensure we do not see a repeat of what occurred last weekend.