HOUSTON – Mike Everding lives in the apartments near the Edwards Greenway Grand Palace Stadium 24 movie theater on Weslayan at Richmond. He said walking his dog at night on weekends isn't what it used to be.
"There have been some questionable characters that have been roaming around the area and some interesting behaviors that we have witnessed," Everding said.
Two days after Christmas, police said a 14-year-old boy who'd been asked to leave the theater with his friends was robbed of his tennis shoes and beaten up by another group of six minors. It happened around 10:30 p.m. right across the street from the theater.
"The fact that anybody would be robbed and beaten up for their shoes is alarming," Everding said. "You just hope that someone is around to see it and stop it, because there's no need for that around this neighborhood."
A Local 2 Facebook fan captured the chaos that erupted afterward with their smartphone and messaged the station several photos.
A source told Local 2 that Houston police were called to assist security officers following another brawl that included a report of gunshots being fired. Police could be seen trying to keep everyone calm and clear the theater.
While the city has a teen curfew, residents said the loitering outside the theater into the wee hours of the morning is only getting worse.
"It's a lot of cliques and a lot of clans. People that you could really tell from a distance they just don't like each other," Everding said.
It's a problem security and police are working to address.
Local 2 Investigates recently went through hundreds of pages of crime data to find the areas near theaters where law enforcement wrote the most police reports. No. 5 on the list was the Regal Cinema on Weslayan and Richmond. It had 59 reports written in the last two years.