Thousands of people across the U.S. took the significance of Memorial Day too literally as some of America’s beaches turned into all-out war across the holiday weekend.
The worst of the Memorial Day weekend violence took place at Carson Beach in South Boston when rival gang members clashed, triggering a massive law enforcement response from at least five agencies to get it under control.
Police said the gang members were part of a group of more than one thousand youths who organised their beach gatherings via Facebook and other social networking sites.
Although the beach was filled mainly with families and other Memorial Day revellers simply trying to soak up the sun, the youths gathered at the beach and nearby parking lots.
Three state troopers responded around 5:30pm to the first report of a fight and said they were confronted with a gang of about one thousand people.
According to The Boston Globe, when the troopers called for backup, State Police streamed in, State Police Special Tactical Operations teams and Boston SWAT teams arrived, and the Boston Police Department activated its Emergency Deployment Teams, which brought officers into South Boston from all over the city.
Though there were no reports of serious injuries, a handful of youths were arrested on Friday and Sunday and by 8:30pm yesterday, State Police had arrested two people in the Memorial Day melee.
A spokesman for the state police said: ‘Veteran troopers assigned to the State Police barracks for a couple of decades have never seen as large a volume of kids that were there tonight.’
He said they were mainly aged 14 to 19 years old.
