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Mar 23, 2008 11:06 am US/Central
Parents Upset By Treatment Of Teens At Local Mall
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ―
Some North Texas parents are up in arms after their teenagers were wrongfully detained at an upscale shopping mall. The 17-year-olds say they were humiliated, handcuffed, and needlessly put on public display because of a supposed shoplifting incident that never happened.
The four friends say they never had a clue. They had come to Northpark Center to help one of the teens shop for sunglasses. When they didn't get any service, they left. That is when uniformed guards appeared.
Mia Castillo, the teen who had been shopping for the glasses, told us "We had been walking all of four or five minutes when 4-5 security guards approached us and handcuffed us all and said, 'Where are the glasses? Give me the glasses.' All of us were speechless."
They say public the display was the most embarrassing. They spent over half an hour in cuffs, to the snickers of passing shoppers.
Juan Villa, another one of the teens, said "We were embarrassed, you know, they handcuffed us for nothing we didn't do. I mean, they didn't even bother to take us into a room or anything."
When a Dallas Police officer finally arrived to take charge it was quickly decided there had been no theft and ordered the guards to free the teens.
Mia and her friends say mall security told them "Sorry for the inconvenience."
But it was much more than inconvenience. On Saturday the teens and their parents demanded a meeting with the mall security team. They feel the youngsters were singles out for being young and Hispanic.
The families will have another meeting with the Mall on Monday.
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