Beachwood Place Chaos: Shoppers Run in Fear as Police Respond to Fight

(Updated at 8:30 a.m.) BEACHWOOD, OHIO — A fight among a large group of young people at upscale Beachwood Place Monday evening called officers from several area police departments to the shopping center and put the mall on lockdown for roughly an hour. One juvenile was taken into custody, and an officer was struck in the face.

The fracas was reported about 6:30 p.m., according to various media reports, with some social media reports of shots fired, which police said were inaccurate.

Pepper spray was used by police to disperse a crowd, and one person suffered a pepper-spray-related injury, a Beachwood Fire Department captain told a cleveland.com reporter. "My face burned ... it went into my skin," John Boyd of Cleveland said. "My whole body burned."

On Twitter, some mall customers said shots were fired, but authorities denied that gunshots were fired. Officers from Beachwood, South Euclid, Lyndhurst and other cities have been called to the mall.

Shortly after 8 p.m. police said there was no active shooter or shots fired at Beachwood Place, according to the Breaking911 Twitter feed.

Fox 8 quotes sources who say the disturbance began in the mall food court. A source said some shoppers were hiding in dressing rooms, but there are no reports of injuries.

With police escorting shoppers out of the stores, mall security says a brawl among a mob of 700 young people in the food court sparked the police response. Authorities have not confirmed the number of people involved in the fight.

A juvenile is in custody, reports cleveland.com, and is accused of striking an officer after police responded to the fight in the food court.

This video shows people fleeing the mall, with some falling to the floor as crowds push and shove; be advised profanity is audible.

Tear gas was used in the main corridor of the mall, according to Dan DeRoos, reporting for 19 Action News, who spoke to a woman in the Saks Fifth Avenue store.

One man and one police officer were treated for exposure to the pepper spray, the Beachwood Fire Department said.

A manager at the mall's Nordstrom store told DeRoos that the lockdown was put in place about 7 p.m., and he saw an ambulance arrive about 7:30 p.m.

As many as nine malls across the nation experienced fights and disruptions on the day after Christmas, including malls in Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

A mall in Aurora, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, went on lockdown as police responded to a wild night of brawls involving hundreds of teens Monday night. Another chaotic scene in Garden City, New York, resulted in a mad dash for the exits and injuries. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, shoppers panicked when a chair thrown in a fight made a noise that sounded like a gunshot. An 8-year-old girl was hurt.

This breaking news will be updated as details become available.