A Vicious Fight at Arlington Mall Goes Viral and Turns Into Rumors About a Shooting

A fight at The Parks Mall at Arlington went viral after a video was posted of the brawl and online rumors made it out to be something much worse.

Arlington Police responded to the fight at the mall Saturday evening. Rumors started surfacing that the incident involved gunfire, causing a panic that forced the Arlington PD to issue a formal statement explaining what happened, according to the Arlington PD's Twitter page.

The fight broke out in the mall's food court. An employee behind the counter of one of the food court restaurant's recorded a video capturing at the tail end of the brawl. The video shows police trying to pull three women off each other as a crowd gathers around them, some pulling out their cell phones to record their own videos.

Mall security is seen breaking up the crowd as police struggle to contain the women. One of them, an unidentified woman with blue hair, tries to get off the floor while being held and is warned verbally to stay still by an Arlington police officer. As she tries to wriggle her way out of the officer's grasp, the officer has a can of pepper spray in one hand aimed at her face and a handful of her blue hair in the other. He pulls the women toward him by her hair and fires a stream of spray in her eyes, causing her to grab her face in pain.  Videos of the fight from multiple angles found their way across social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Some posts claimed that gunfire was involved, but there were no videos or evidence of that.

The chatter became so overblown and incorrect that Arlington Police issued an official statement on Twitter explaining the incident just a few hours after police broke up the fight. According to the Arlington PD, the fight started "between a large group of teens inside the mall."

"Once officers arrived and got the situation under control, they were able to determine that no shots were fired — and no one was seriously injured," according to the statement.

Arlington Police confirmed that "multiple juveniles" were taken into custody and face charges of fighting in public but did not identify how many may have been involved or were arrested as a result of the fight.

"APD has and will continue to work closely with Parks Mall staff to ensure the mall is a safe and fun place for everyone," the police statement says.