Mall concert turns into boy-band melee

updated 4:12 a.m. ET Nov. 13, 2005

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. - Police shut down a suburban shopping mall Saturday after screaming fans of the boy band B5 rushed the stage during a free concert, grabbing at the band members’ clothing and overwhelming the small team of security guards.

“Things were falling off the stage, girls were falling off the stage, girls started fighting,” said Theresa Curtis, who was working at a store near the stage.

Some of the girls grabbed one of the boys in the band, said Tamy Johnson, another store employee. “He ran to the back. Another boy, he just ran. Security escorted some of the boys out the back,” she said.

Four people were treated at a hospital for minor injuries, and five others were treated at the mall, police said. There were no arrests.

‘It just seemed like a girl frenzy’
More than 2,000 fans, mostly teenage girls, had converged on Brookdale Center mall for the show, sponsored by the local Radio Disney station, KDIZ-AM. The band had made it to the second song when the chaos broke out.

“It just seemed like a girl frenzy,” said Christopher Taykalo of Radio Disney.

The 10 mall security guards assigned to the concert and the radio station staff were overwhelmed.

Seventy officers from 23 area Minneapolis-area communities responded to the chaos. It took about 15 minutes for them to get the crowd under control and another 30 minutes to clear out the mall. The mall reopened later Saturday evening.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Jennifer Fullbright, 49, of Cottage Grove, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. She had brought her daughter and her friend to the see the band.

Curtis said her store took in a few girls who had lost their parents amid the ruckus.

B5 is a group of five brothers from Atlanta — Dustin, Patrick, Kelly, Bryan and Carnell Breeding — ages 10 to 17. Their debut album, “All I Do,” came out this summer, and they toured with the BET cable network’s “Scream Tour IV.”

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