About 150 involved in mass brawl at Helsinki amusement park

Linnanmäki closed early at police instigation

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Helsinki’s Linnanmäki amusement park was closed an hour before the official closing time on Sunday after a fight involving up to 150 people broke out.
      Police are investigating about 10 complaints of assault that were made after the altercation. According to police, injuries sustained in the brawl were minor, and no weapons were used. No arrests were made. Those taking part in the melee were of immigrant origin and between the ages of 10 and 20, according to Kirsi Kant, the police officer on duty.
     
Kant said that the fight apparently was sparked by an incident of queue-jumping at one of the park’s rides. There had been scuffles between smaller groups earlier and the day, even leading to police intervention. In the evening, the tensions flared up again, on a much bigger scale than before.
      “The clash was not planned in advance. It was caused by the situation at hand”, Kant said on Sunday evening. A woman who witnessed the event told Helsingin Sanomat that the trouble started when three girls tried to get ahead of others who were waiting to get on the ride. Women in the back became angry, and men soon joined the scuffle.
     
Linnanmäki managing director Risto Räikkönen said that the fight was between members of two ethnic groups. However, police said that it did not involve two separate groups, although young people of immigrant backgrounds were involved.
      Räikkönen says that the fight started at about 6:45 PM.
      “The park’s security personnel soon noticed that the situation was out of control and called the police”, Räikkönen says.
     
Police received the report of the incident at 6:45, and the first police patrols arrived at 7:00. Ten minutes later the police decided to close the park. Normally Linnanmäki would have closed at 8:00 PM.
      One parent who was at the scene with three 13-year-old girls characterised the shut-down as chaotic, with families being temporarily separated in the melée.
     
Sunday was a special discount day at Linnanmäki. Räikkönen believes that the two-for-the-price-of-one offer, combined with the sunny weather, had attracted between 15,000 and 20,000 people to the park during the whole day.
      He estimates that toward the evening there might have been up to 9,000 people there.
      In the past, Linnannmäki quite often saw similar trouble among groups of young people on May Eve, and in 1979 disturbances got so out of hand that the amusement park was only open for part of the day on May Eve for the next fifteen years, with the opening hours being relaxed only in 1994.
     


Links:
  Linnanmäki Amusement Park

Helsingin Sanomat