Long Island police found it necessary to shut down a scheduled appearance at a mall by Justin Bieber, teen pop singer, when things got too wild among the thousands of girls showing up.
The Friday crowd comprised of almost 3,000 adults and girls began to push and shove while waiting for fifteen year old Bieber to show up at Roosevelt Field Mall located in Garden City.
Things started to get out of hand two hours before Bieber’s scheduled appearance. Five people ended up being taken to hospital due to minor injuries.
Aimee Macchi, a thirteen year old girl who was at the mall said, people were screaming Justin. When they ran forward the ropes collapsed. In the rush I was knocked down to the floor. Everybody was pushing. There wasn’t any room to breathe.
A vice president of Island Def Jam Records, the record label of Bieber, was arrested by police because he was not cooperating with attempts for dispersing the crowd.
Police charged James Roppo from Hoboken, N.J. with several misdemeanors that included obstructing governmental administration and endangering children’s welfare.
Kevin Smith, Detective Lieutenant of the Nassau County Police said that they asked Roppo for his help to get the crowd to leave through sending a Twitter message out. By him not cooperating, we felt he put the public at risk and lives in danger.
Island Records, the label that released “My World,” the first album for the Canadian teen, apologized to fans this week through a written statement.
There were children and parents who had camped before dawn waiting for the scheduled 4 pm. appearance.
Bieber didn’t ever show up at the building.
Bieber sent a message through Twitter to his fans, telling them that they weren’t allowing him to come to the mall and said that the police were threatening his arrest if he did not leave.
In 2007 Bieber caught the music industry’s attention when he started to post videos on YouTube of him singing.