7 Arrested After Hundreds of Kids Brawl at New Jersey Mall

What started as a TikTok “linkup” turned into total mayhem at Menlo Park Mall this weekend, when more than 300 teens showed up and turned a suburban shopping center into the site of a full-blown brawl.

It started with a video—just a casual post suggesting a meetup at the mall on Saturday night. By the time 8 p.m. hit, Menlo Park was crawling with hundreds of kids from all over New Jersey. And they weren’t there to shop.

According to Edison Mayor Sam Joshi, the crowd ballooned from around 100 to “over 300 youth,” seemingly fueled by viral posts that had been gaining traction all week. One TikTok teasing the event had racked up over 150,000 views and thousands of likes by Thursday.

Over 300 Teens Swarmed a Jersey Mall After a TikTok Invite—and It Exploded Into a Brawl

By Saturday night, the place was a mess. Police were called when fights broke out, backup was summoned from nearby towns, and at least one officer was injured—fracturing their ankle while trying to break things up. Seven minors were arrested, including one for aggravated assault on a cop. Six others are facing charges for disorderly conduct, and one of them also got slapped with resisting arrest.

“There was one township officer on duty,” Edison Police Chief Tom Bryan said, adding that they had to quickly call in reinforcements once things got out of hand. “TikTok definitely played a role.”

While the original posts didn’t explicitly advertise a fight, the crowd clearly wasn’t there for Sbarro. Teens were screaming, filming, and running from officers as the scene unraveled—only to post it right back on TikTok as it happened.

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None of the arrested teens were seriously injured, and no weapons were recovered. Still, Joshi confirmed that most of them weren’t even from Edison—just part of a much bigger wave that showed up for the viral moment.

“This type of incident was the first of its kind at the Parsonage Road shopping center,” Bryan noted, which is a very polite way of saying: this has never happened before, and no one was ready for it.

Welcome to the modern mall experience. Apparently it’s no longer about sneakers and Orange Julius, it’s about riots and views.