Walthamstow Central fight: Police close London high street to stop brawl involving hundreds of people
Police officers arrested three people
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Police were forced to close off a busy high street in London after groups of young people brawled outside a London Underground station.
Approximately 200 people, believed to have been in their late teens, were thought to have been involved in the mass fight in the East London town of Walthamstow at around 5pm, according to police.
The group was later dispersed at around 8:45pm. Metropolitan police officers arrested three people, but no one was injured in the incident.
Officers remained on the scene after nightfall to ensure that those involved did not regroup.
Footage of the incident shows a large group of young people screaming and frantically beating each other, as bystanders look on in shock.
Witness Gavin Rugg, an IT consultant, said he say around 15 men fighting in Hoe Street, as smaller groups of teenagers clashed nearby.
“I was surprised - I have only moved to the area a couple of months ago from Stockwell and I have never seen anything like this before,” he told The Evening Standard.
Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, tweeted that she was “furious” about the incident, and urged the public to avoid the area.
Mirroring Ms Creasy's sentiments, YIAG, a youth engagement group, tweeted that the reputation of the borough's young people should not be tainted by the brawl.
The incident comes after a fight involving over 100 young people at a branch of McDonald’s in Hoe Street on Monday at around 5pm, The Evening Standard reported.
As a police launched an investigation into the cause of the incident, local residents speculated on Twitter that the fight involved pupils from Sir George Monoux College and Leyton Sixth Form College.