Dozens of young people were arrested last weekend on assault, trespassing and theft charges in Owings Mills, part of a joint police effort to curb crime around the AMC Owings Mills movie theater, authorities said.
Officers took into custody 41 juveniles and four adults altogether on Friday and Saturday nights and charged the majority of them with trespassing for trying to get around a fence separating the movie theater and a nearby public transportation depot, a Baltimore County police spokesman said.
Maryland Transit Administration officials set up the fence after several robbery suspects took off from the movie theater at the Owings Mills Mall and escaped the area by going over to the station, Cpl. Michael Hill said. For a week, officers warned people in the area that going around the fence was trespassing, and that they had to board a bus to get from the station to the theater, he said.
They took into custody 22 people on Friday and 23 more on Saturday, Hill said. Officers arrested two people on assault charges after a fight broke out near the movie theater, four for allegedly trying to steal from cars, two on weapons charges and four on drug violations, he said.
The rest were charged with at least trespassing.
Security officers at the Owings Mills Mall work cooperatively with Baltimore County police keeping the area safe, mall manager Kevin Budny said.
He declined to detail security procedures but said, “I think safety at any mall is everybody’s top concern … especially with the young client base that all malls are dealing with.”
In June, a 62-year-old man was shot to death inside the movie theater during a showing of “X-Men: The Last Stand.”
