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Fist fights for fun: Kingwood kids duking it out catches attention online
By STEFANIE THOMAS
As YouTube footage of teenage fight clubs in Kingwood hit television news earlier this week, following a news tip by an area resident, local police officials were caught off-guard.
“We didn’t know this was going on,” said Houston Police Department Kingwood Division Lt. Carlton Brown. “Two years or so ago a bike officer came upon a couple of kids fighting with boxing gloves and broke it up, but other than that we had no reports. I wish it would have been brought to our attention sooner.”
Brown said that he is aware of the handful of You Tube videos depicting what looks like mostly after-school fist fights among friends on area greenbelts and vacant lost. Much of the footage, he said, looks like it was taken with camera phones.
They grapple and throw punches, roll in the mud and buck each other off. A group of 20 or so boys and girls cheer and jeer. Occasionally, a defeated fighter wipes his bloody nose on a shirt sleeve. Once the ferocious battle is over and the victor has asserted his superiority, the loser usually suffers the humiliation of one last playful jab that signals the end of the fight and seems to say, “No hard feelings.”
“When I was a kid, people didn’t just fight just for fun; it was usually the result of a disagreement,” he said. “So this concept of friend fighting friend for the fun of it, that’s a phenomenon to me, but other people say it’s been going on for years.”
Some of the videos were posted online as far back as 2007, some as recent as a couple of months ago.
Viewing the videos himself and doing some research, Brown said, he discovered that there are thousands of such videos available for viewing online, with about 20 percent involving fights among young girls.
“It’s all over the Internet,” he said. “As for the Kingwood videos, the kids seemed to be between 15 and 19 years old. We recognized a couple of places, but in most cases it’s hard to tell where the fight took place.”
According to Brown, fighting in public is against the law, and participants may face penalties even if the fight is mutual and the parties involved choose not to press charges.
“It’s called a fray, and it’s a class C misdemeanor, like a traffic ticket or public intoxication,” Brown said. “The participants wouldn’t necessarily go to jail and might just receive a ticket.”
Brown said that HPD officials considered trying to identify the teens, some of whom wore Creekwood Middle School T-shirts in the videos and whose faces appear very clearly in the footage, but may not pursue the idea of tracking down the YouTube fighters.
“Only in a very limited number can we determine where these fights happened, much less when they happened,” he said. “We could go to the school and find those kids, but we’d still have to prove the fights happened in public. We can’t even write a ticket without a specific location and date. That’s a big issue in court. If an officer as much as misspells the street they often dismiss the ticket, not to mention a complete lack of location and time.”
Instead, Brown said, the HPD Kingwood Division wants to focus on getting more bike officers out on Kingwood’s 75 miles of greenbelt trails, hoping that increased police visibility will prevent potential fights and that officers may pinpoint some of the locations where the kids gather and catch them in the act.
Although the current YouTube videos he watched showed no serious injuries as a result of the fights, Brown said it’s only a matter of time until someone ends up in the hospital.
“It’s not very vicious and seems to be mostly about bragging rights, but some kids get beat up pretty badly,” he said. “Eventually you’ll have some broken noses and fractured jaws.”
He added that the YouTube videos showed no indication that the fights are gang-related, nor does betting seem to be involved.
“It’s another example of kids being bored and finding stuff to do, as well as insufficient supervision after school,” he said. “Parents who want to know what their kids are up to...check their cell phones.”
“We didn’t know this was going on,” said Houston Police Department Kingwood Division Lt. Carlton Brown. “Two years or so ago a bike officer came upon a couple of kids fighting with boxing gloves and broke it up, but other than that we had no reports. I wish it would have been brought to our attention sooner.”
Brown said that he is aware of the handful of You Tube videos depicting what looks like mostly after-school fist fights among friends on area greenbelts and vacant lost. Much of the footage, he said, looks like it was taken with camera phones.
They grapple and throw punches, roll in the mud and buck each other off. A group of 20 or so boys and girls cheer and jeer. Occasionally, a defeated fighter wipes his bloody nose on a shirt sleeve. Once the ferocious battle is over and the victor has asserted his superiority, the loser usually suffers the humiliation of one last playful jab that signals the end of the fight and seems to say, “No hard feelings.”
“When I was a kid, people didn’t just fight just for fun; it was usually the result of a disagreement,” he said. “So this concept of friend fighting friend for the fun of it, that’s a phenomenon to me, but other people say it’s been going on for years.”
Some of the videos were posted online as far back as 2007, some as recent as a couple of months ago.
Viewing the videos himself and doing some research, Brown said, he discovered that there are thousands of such videos available for viewing online, with about 20 percent involving fights among young girls.
“It’s all over the Internet,” he said. “As for the Kingwood videos, the kids seemed to be between 15 and 19 years old. We recognized a couple of places, but in most cases it’s hard to tell where the fight took place.”
According to Brown, fighting in public is against the law, and participants may face penalties even if the fight is mutual and the parties involved choose not to press charges.
“It’s called a fray, and it’s a class C misdemeanor, like a traffic ticket or public intoxication,” Brown said. “The participants wouldn’t necessarily go to jail and might just receive a ticket.”
Brown said that HPD officials considered trying to identify the teens, some of whom wore Creekwood Middle School T-shirts in the videos and whose faces appear very clearly in the footage, but may not pursue the idea of tracking down the YouTube fighters.
“Only in a very limited number can we determine where these fights happened, much less when they happened,” he said. “We could go to the school and find those kids, but we’d still have to prove the fights happened in public. We can’t even write a ticket without a specific location and date. That’s a big issue in court. If an officer as much as misspells the street they often dismiss the ticket, not to mention a complete lack of location and time.”
Instead, Brown said, the HPD Kingwood Division wants to focus on getting more bike officers out on Kingwood’s 75 miles of greenbelt trails, hoping that increased police visibility will prevent potential fights and that officers may pinpoint some of the locations where the kids gather and catch them in the act.
Although the current YouTube videos he watched showed no serious injuries as a result of the fights, Brown said it’s only a matter of time until someone ends up in the hospital.
“It’s not very vicious and seems to be mostly about bragging rights, but some kids get beat up pretty badly,” he said. “Eventually you’ll have some broken noses and fractured jaws.”
He added that the YouTube videos showed no indication that the fights are gang-related, nor does betting seem to be involved.
“It’s another example of kids being bored and finding stuff to do, as well as insufficient supervision after school,” he said. “Parents who want to know what their kids are up to...check their cell phones.”
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