News Opening Day Ends with In-Park Brawls & Nearby Shooting

[Zachary]

According to the GBI, there were nearly 500-600 people at the park Saturday evening, running and fighting. Cobb County police led the crowd out of the park onto South Service Road when an unknown number of suspects fired shots at the officers.

An officer returned fire, hitting on of the suspects. That person was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. Their current condition is unknown.

15-year-old critical after being shot by police officer near Six Flags Over Georgia

A 15-year-old is in critical condition after being shot by a police officer outside Six Flags Over Georgia on Saturday night, according to Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

www.fox5atlanta.com

First-hand account via Coasters & Brews:

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[Coasternerd]

Holy fucking shit!
I knew SFOG is in an area that isn’t all that desirable, but godDAMN! And on the first day open for the season! This does not bode well for the future of SFOG’s season.

 

[Zachary]

A similar situation happened opening weekend last year too for the record. Clearly Six Flags Over Georgia needs to make changes.

Multiple fights break out during Six Flags Over Georgia's opening weekend

Six Flags Over Georgia has to remove multiple groups of teens after its opening weekend turned violent with a series of fights around the park.

www.fox5atlanta.com

 

[Coasternerd]

Yikes! Thats not good.

 

[Thriller]

Trashy maintained parks aimed mainly at thrill seekers only attract undesirable clientele.

 

[Zachary]

There are plenty of amusement parks where incidents like these aren't a yearly occurrence.

 

[warfelg]

Parks need to do better 100%, but I’m curious as to what part of this do we also put on the local PD. I had someone put opening day of a park akin to a concert. It’s busy, there’s a lot of people, frustrations are heightened, you may have some trouble flair up. So I feel like there should be some responsibility of the locality to ensure the police presence is big enough in the area to aid in any issues.

Now obviously we can speak to the specifics of what happened here, but I know that local PD in Kennywood’s area always does the “they need to do better because we can’t help” cry every time KW has issues.

Personally I don’t know what the right answer to these things are. Is it to have higher prices? More security? Curfew programs? Supervision programs? I don’t know to be hones. One thing I do know is it’s not just happening at parks. Over the weekend I’ve heard of at least 4 fights at golf courses, 2 in the mall near me. It seams to be something that just permeates our society today.

 

[CoasterAuditor]

This is pretty disheartening to see. I want to like this park so much more than I do currently but it seems to just be very poorly run across the board compared to other Six Flags and regional amusement parks. I hope they do a total overhaul on management here or something after the merger. I saw some of the most confused and lost staff I’ve ever seen at a theme park when I visited last year. It was painful in some instances.