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As “teen takeovers” wreak havoc across the country, authorities in Florida’s St. Johns County say they thwarted an event after detecting social media posts encouraging young people to descend on St. Augustine Beach for what officials described as a potentially chaotic and violent gathering.
“This wasn’t an invite for a teen party or a beach gathering. This was an invitation to come take over our beach and create chaos and possibly leading to violence,” St. Augustine Beach Police Chief Daniel Carswell told Fox News on Monday.
Authorities preemptively canceled the planned takeover for public safety and to send a signal to those planning to participate.
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“[We did this] to put everybody on alert that if they come, if they’re going to respond to this invitation, there’s going to be zero tolerance here in St. Augustine Beach,” Carswell added.
St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick said targeting suspicious social media chatter began with analyzing community reports and extensively monitoring the organizers’ attempts to act behind the scenes.
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“The organizers started moving it around, basically on posters, trying to be strategically behind the scenes, trying to get people to bite into the actual event itself. And again, we just don’t tolerate this garbage in St. Johns County…”
Carswell could not recall any prior attempts to stage such an event in St. Johns County but pointed to other instances across the country, including some in the Sunshine State.
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“These things are spread… via TikTok and social media…” he said.
“You don’t know if it’s going to be 10 people, 100 people, or 1,000 people are going to [be] showing up, so it’s extremely taxing on our resources, especially being a small police department like we are.”
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