FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. – The Fairview Heights Police Department is still piecing together the events of Saturday night, when they were called around 10:30 for multiple fights at a Sky Zone trampoline park.
“We had several 911 calls that said numerous people were fighting at Sky Zone,” said Chief Steve Johnson for the Fairview Heights Police Department. “In fact, someone said it was 150 people fighting. In most cases, when you get calls like that, it turns out to be different of what you found out, and we don’t believe it was that many people that were fighting. But there were some fights that were going on. Because we know that once everyone comes out of the parking lot, there’s people over here and over there, and different fights start. We wanted to flood the parking lot with law enforcement and de-escalate the situation and let everybody know there’s not going to be any fights while we’re here.”
Authorities sent out an emergency broadcast Saturday over the ISPERN or Illinois State Police Emergency Response Network.
Law enforcement from Belleville, Swansea, Collinsville, Illinois State Police, Shiloh, and O’Fallon responded immediately.
According to a social media post from Fairview Heights police, arriving officers had a hard time getting into the facility because so many juveniles were running out and shoving the officers.
Officers were told numerous fights had occurred in different places inside Sky Zone. Officers began separating the crowd and calming individuals using de-escalation techniques.
“Numerous departments sent multiple law enforcement officers to help us out,” Johnson said. “It’s not something you want to that often. But when you do, it’s good to know that you have help coming.”
Detectives are still reviewing phone footage taken Saturday night during the fight.
“We’re just not going to allow this to continue at this point,” Johnson said. “We’re going to do everything we can for it to stop. It needs to be a fun place for kids, not a fight club.”
Johnson said that he is going to meet with Sky Zone’s management to make sure that policies and procedures are put in place to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
Fairview Heights police said this type of incident cannot and will not be tolerated and that strong legal action will be taken against anyone involved.