Columbia further tightens rules for minors at Finlay Park after ‘teen takeover’
Columbia is further tightening rules for minors at Finlay Park after teen fights broke out during a festival Saturday.
Minors can’t be alone in Finlay Park after 5 p.m. and must be accompanied by a chaperone who is at least 25 years old. The city had previously instituted the chaperone policy allowing minors to be in the park with someone who is at least 21 years old.
“While age 21 represents legal adulthood / independence, age 25 is more widely accepted as the age when more responsibility and accountability are expected in decision-making,” Columbia City Manager Teresa Wilson said in a statement released alongside the stricter policy.
The new rules come after numerous fights broke out among teenagers at the city’s Juneteenth Freedom Fest held at the park this Saturday, which contributed to police evacuating the park before the festival was supposed to end.
After the festival had been forced closed, the city formally enacted a policy banning unaccompanied minors from the park after 5 p.m. daily, except for field trips and other pre-approved activities. The new change, enacted Wednesday, raises the age for required chaperones.
Police on Monday also disclosed additional details about what happened Saturday night, leading up to the festival’s early cancellation. A child found live ammunition for a 9mm handgun at the park’s playground shortly before fights broke out across the park. Police did not locate a gun.
Holbrook said officers were also called about people throwing bags into the park. Investigators earlier this week were still reviewing security footage. As of Monday police had identified 12 to 15 juvenile “aggressors” believed to have led the disturbances, Holbrook said Monday.
Wilson described the Juneteenth disruptions as a “teen takeover,” a trend in which teenagers use social media to coordinate large, unsupervised meetups at public places that in other parts of the country have turned chaotic and at times violent. Wilson stressed the city won’t allow that kind of gathering to take hold at Columbia parks, particularly at Finlay Park, where she said the city had invested too much to let the space be “threatened by foolishness and wrong behaviors.”
