Video: Teens yell, swear and spit on officers outside Euclid church festival

EUCLID, Ohio (WJW) – The FOX 8 I-Team obtained Euclid police body camera video showing the chaos police encountered outside of the 14th Annual Saints Robert and William Family Friendly Church Festival.

The body camera shows teens refusing to listen to officers orders, as well as yelling and swearing at police. One teen also spit on an officer.

“That amount of disrespect, I would like to say it’s alarming but it’s not anymore these days,” said Captain Mitch Houser. “This group of juveniles appears to think that they don’t need to follow the rules and that is why they were told to leave in the first place.”

On Friday and Saturday evening, dozens of Euclid officers dealt with the large crowds of defiant teens. Officers did use pepper spray and pepper balls to help get the teens to leave.

Euclid Police Chief Scott Meyer tells the I-Team that there were no problems inside the actual festival. He said the teens were outside of the event. Meyer said police worked with church officials on a security plan prior to the festival.

“The officer really did a good job and I think showed a lot of restraint,” the chief said. “I know some people wonder why we didn’t make arrests. Our goal was to disperse the crowd. Here is the issue with physical arrests, particularly on juveniles. The majority of time we are simply returning them to their parents. So we would need to take two officers off the road for every one of those juveniles that we take into custody. The juvenile detention facility is not going to take them for these offenses.”

The chief added that he urges parents to talk to their teens and know the rules before dropping their kids off at a festival.

“We want to keep the festivals safe for everyone,” Meyer said.

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