HOLLADAY, Utah, Aug. 13, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — What started out as an end-of-summer party for a group of high-schoolers nearly turned into a melee Friday night when police responded to neighbors’ complaints about loud music and “kids all over the place.”
The first disturbing-the-peace call came in at about 10 p.m., Unified Police Lt. Manfred Lassig told Gephardt Daily.
Police went out to a home on Cottonwood Lane, where “the parents were hosting an end-of-summer, back-to-school party for their kids,” Lassig said.
The officers returned at 11 p.m. to shut the party down, Lassig said, and the parents told them they had been planning to end it at 11 p.m. anyway.
Lassig estimated that, by then, 500 teens were milling around outside on both sides of the street.
“(The parents) blamed social media (for all these kids showing up),” he said.
The teens weren’t happy about being told to go home at 11 p.m. Lassig said some of them argued that the police had no business being there and no right to tell them what to do.
“Some of the kids wanted to fight us,” he said, “so we called out more troops.”
About 40 officers from Unified Police, Salt Lake City Police Department, Highway Patrol and other agencies across the Salt Lake Valley responded, and the party-goers dispersed with no further resistance.
Lassig said no arrests were made; however, the incident will be screened with the Holladay city prosecutor to see if any charges should be brought against the adults who hosted the party.
