Wednesday September 26, 2018
An evacuation at Valleyfair on Saturday night led to confusion, concern and many questions among guests and KARE 11 viewers.
Common
questions included whether weapons made their way into the park and
played a role in the evacuation. There were also numerous questions
about whether gangs were involved.
First, here's what Shakopee Police are saying about the decision and what led to it:
"Late
(Saturday) night, officers from Shakopee Police assigned to Valleyfair
responded to reports of multiple fights. The number of individuals
running throughout the park increased substantially and was difficult to
control. Due to the large number of altercations, it was decided to
clear the park of all guests. Officers from Shakopee and surrounding
communities ushered out all guests from the park.
"There
have been no reported injuries or property from (Saturday's) incident.
There have been some comments about a knife being used in a fight, but
at this time we have no evidence of any weapons being used in these
altercations.
"We can report that three individuals were cited for minor offenses."
Despite the statement, questions continued to pour into KARE 11, Shakopee Police and Valleyfair offices in the following days.Many
of the questions stemmed from a series of unsubstantiated claims
detailed in a blog post (and later shared on Facebook). The blogger,
citing anonymous witnesses, alleged that the violence was prompted by
"Somali gangs" and later referred to the incident as a "Somali Riot."
The
Shakopee Police Department responded directly to those claims on its
Facebook page, stating, "No it wasn’t a Somalian riot". The department
went on to say, "We had no evidence whatsoever that there was any
specific gang affiliation with this incident."
KARE 11 reached out
to several people who were at Valleyfair during the evacuation on
Saturday. None of them reported seeing anything resembling gang activity
or riots.
"We didn't even realize anything had happened until the
lights in the park came on," said Michael Marshall, who was at the park
with Kerry Dikken and captured cell phone video of the evacuation and
one person being taken away by police. "I didn't see any gang-type
activity at all."