3 Women get into a brawl at Test Track

[Josh Hendy]

If the parks are going to be as crowded as New Year's Eve in NYC, on as many days as possible, and they're going to sell alcohol in most of the parks, then they're going to have to take the kind of precautions that NYC takes to control crowds and deal with incidents. In other words they're going to have to spend a bit more to stay out of the courts and avoid nasty headlines like "Brawl at Epcot". I don't mean fence people into corrals and put a cop beside every corral, but c'mon ... figure out something a bit more intelligent than "call security or your manager" (who may be on break or halfway across the park).

How about training front-line CMs (since evidently managers are often not in the building) how to deal with trouble as soon as they hear shouting and cursing. Like by switching on the house lights and killing all the music and sound effects and getting on the PA immediately to say, "Please remain calm and wait for a cast member to assist you." Call it an e-stop for the queue. The startle-factor alone is probably going to make people shut up and stand still, before weapons and fists start flying. The CM asks what's going on, the people complain about this one or that one cutting in front of them, the CM pretends to be deeply concerned, and makes everyone happy by letting one group proceed, and giving the other group a handful of FastPasses for any other ride, just not this one. This isn't even an expensive strategy or a difficult one to train-up and implement. Meanwhile the e-stop triggers security HQ to save and review all camera views to check if any of the parties need to be sought out and given some more attention.

 

[metzgardesign]

Too bad TT doesn't have an integrated restaurant (like the Mexico Pavilion).....dinner AND a show.

Kinda like the Luau or Hoop-De-Doo-Revue....only with more parasols and cussing....oh, and Goofy® hats.

 

[metzgardesign]

Oh well....this can keep Disney's legal team in a job. Right now they are fashioning a disclaimer to be attached to all parasols (paper and plastic and fabric.....one can never assume in the land of legalese after all) sold in the Japan Pavilion (and all other points of outlet):

"This parasol is intended ONLY for decorative and/or shading use.

It is NOT intended, designed, or constructed for whacking the following (fellow park attendees, bus drivers, characters, Mousekeepers, quick service cashiers, table service waiters or waitresses, lifeguards, Pin Station attendees, The Chapeau Hat Shoppe seamstresses, Barbershop Quartet singers, boat captains, front desk resort attendees, customer relations professionals, sanitation team members, Monorail drivers and any other not aforementioned Cast Members and/or representatives of the Walt Disney Company® and family of companies, in addition to any other persons in and around Walt Disney Company® properties and holdings) all about the head and/or body.

Any such use will void its 3-day warranty, and subject the user to online video scrutiny and judgement."


That's going to have to be a rather large tag on the parasol.

 

[Teamubr]

it's 3-day warranty,

3 DAYS!??

I thought you were lucky to get 3 hours out of them.

j

 

[Guyton dis lover]

All who were involved should have walked away. Idiots are every where and you never know who you are going to engage when you take aggressive action in any situation. You may think you are tuff but when you break bad on some swat team member or some soldier or marine you put your self at great risk. All party's involved should have walked away. If someone acts in an aggressive manner you should report it to a cast member or Disney security as soon as possible. Everybody goes to Disney to have a good time. You should expect to deal with lines ,crowds and people from all over the world. Just cause you feel entitled does not give you a right to act like a fool at Disney world. I go allot and I see folks that think they can act like pure fools because they paid the price of a ticket. A kind word , a show of respect goes along way. You will be surprised what happens when you say please and excuse me. Do not step in front of child that has sat in the same location to see the parade for hours. It is about the little folks not you. I love to go to Disney world , I live close and I spend about twenty days a year at WDW, I have also fought in three wars and I do not work behind a desk. Be respectful it goes along way.

 

[jimim]

What were they supposed to do? From the video, it looked like no one was hurt. No one was killed. What would you have done?

I agree. I would have rubber necked and moved on. My luck I would have tried to help and then got sued for something stupid. In today's world sad as it is sometimes it's better to just not do something. I know that sounds bad but sometimes you have to think of worse case and how it might affect ur own family.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I bet they are all on "the list" now! Banned for Life!

Sadly the first report I read about this said they were not even escorted out of the park that day. Unless that article was incorrect they were allowed to stay. To me they crossed the line and needed to leave the parks at least for the day.

 

[LVSWL]

If the reality is that they were allowed to stay then I feel that is a problem. What is to stop them, or others from displaying the same behavior, or worse when they feel like it. Geez, I've heard of people being banned because they stole a keychain or snuck behind the scenes to take a picture. This is much more dangerous.

 

[jagson]

2 observations: 1) the video is what I believe is called "prima facie" evidence, ie it speaks for itself; and, 2) As in football it is usually not the perpetrator of the foul, but the player that retaliates who is penalized, and sometimes "thrown out of the game". What I saw on the video was an assault and battery with a potentially deadly weapon with no intent to kill. Unleash the lawyers...
If this video had shown white on white, black on black, or any other ethnic combination, it still would have garnered as much attention. This is the nature of human fascination. Racists will be racists no matter what ethnicity they are. And they'll squirm out from under their rocks to spew their venom whenever given the chance. Don't give them an audience, and they'll, hopefully, crawl back under their rocks. As the saying goes, "don't argue with an idiot-they'll wear you down to their level then beat you with their experience".

 

[PSUGuy]

As the saying goes, "don't argue with an idiot-they'll wear you down to their level then beat you with their experience".

I prefer, 'Never argue with an idiot, bystanders may not be able to tell the difference'.

Bill From PA

 

[jagson]

I prefer, 'Never argue with an idiot, bystanders may not be able to tell the difference'.

Bill From PA

Touche

 

[MakiraMarlena]

would like to point out that there has been no indication whatsoever that anyone involved in this dust-up was under the influence of alcohol.

 

[Josh Hendy]

I went back and found a couple of articles describing the last WDW queue brawl that I remembered, which happened a few years ago at the old Dumbo ride.

The Disney reaction was apparently the same then as now ... get the fight broken up, and then pretend it never happened and hope that there are no further repercussions. As it happened, one of the people involved in the Dumbo Incident had medical problems from the beatdown they received and filed charges some days or weeks later.

Who am I to say that letting frontline CM's deal with it as best as possible and then ignoring the problem isn't the best policy for Disney to adopt? Assuming that is their policy, it may have been proven over the years to be the least problematic ... statistically.

It does seem a bit odd though that Disney takes the trouble to go through the sheriff's office and file paperwork or whatever to ban fairly harmless people from WDW property for life, such as the urban explorer dude and those young people who were loitering at Downtown Disney a few years ago. Named and shamed in the media. But people who get into a loud argument leading to a serious, knock-down brawl with a weapon are only escorted out of the building and maybe out of the park, see you later, and have a nice day?

 

[peg110]

It does seem a bit odd though that Disney takes the trouble to go through the sheriff's office and file paperwork or whatever to ban fairly harmless people from WDW property for life, such as the urban explorer dude and those young people who were loitering at Downtown Disney a few years ago. Named and shamed in the media. But people who get into a loud argument leading to a serious, knock-down brawl with a weapon are only escorted out of the building and maybe out of the park, see you later, and have a nice day?

I suspect the reasons for this or the "Number" of times an incident occurs. They may have gotten information on those involved in the incident and noted it in their system and if continual complaints or infractions occur, then they may get banned.

I don't know the story of the Urban explorer dude or those that were loitering at DTD, but how many times were they "Warned" about their actions (whatever they were) before banning? (Rhetorical)

I don't know nor do I need to know. I don't even know if that's what Disney is doing (What I suggested above) but I think it's reasonable to assume. What I do know, is that Disney is doing what they believe to be best for their overall bottom line. Ejecting/banning people from the park doesn't make them money and could even cost them money (in potential litigation) and probably to the "Bystanders" of an incident the fact that someone was banned/ejected or not probably will NOT impact their overall "Spending" at Disney. Only if people truly don't feel safe at Disney will it really have an impact. Since these types of incidents are not widespread (at least from the perspective of the average visitor) I don't see the "Safeness" factor being an issue.

 

[LVSWL]

I see what you are saying, but for me I think that if that is the case I would have concerns about "continual complaints or infractions occurring". I wouldn't want my family to possibly be around when those happened, and would be very upset if I found out Disney was aware of this type of behavior from these particular people and decided to see if they did anything else. To me, if they feel like they got away with what happened at TT, then they have no reason to not repeat the same behavior or worse if something upsets them.

 

[peg110]

I see what you are saying, but for me I think that if that is the case I would have concerns about "continual complaints or infractions occurring". I wouldn't want my family to possibly be around when those happened, and would be very upset if I found out Disney was aware of this type of behavior from these particular people and decided to see if they did anything else. To me, if they feel like they got away with what happened at TT, then they have no reason to not repeat the same behavior or worse if something upsets them.

But along the same thinking, Disney has no reason to know that they WOULD do it again. It could have been a fluke incident where when they walked away they said to themselves, "What was I thinking?" and it never happens again.

Even in law enforcement, you have to establish a "Pattern" of behavior before taking the "Extreme" steps. A pattern of 1 incident is typically not enough. Even 2 is not (generally) sufficient (depending on the type of incident). Once you get to three, I think you can see that a pattern starts to emerge

 

[Disneychick75]

I suspect the reasons for this or the "Number" of times an incident occurs. They may have gotten information on those involved in the incident and noted it in their system and if continual complaints or infractions occur, then they may get banned.

I don't know the story of the Urban explorer dude or those that were loitering at DTD, but how many times were they "Warned" about their actions (whatever they were) before banning? (Rhetorical)

I don't know nor do I need to know. I don't even know if that's what Disney is doing (What I suggested above) but I think it's reasonable to assume. What I do know, is that Disney is doing what they believe to be best for their overall bottom line. Ejecting/banning people from the park doesn't make them money and could even cost them money (in potential litigation) and probably to the "Bystanders" of an incident the fact that someone was banned/ejected or not probably will NOT impact their overall "Spending" at Disney. Only if people truly don't feel safe at Disney will it really have an impact. Since these types of incidents are not widespread (at least from the perspective of the average visitor) I don't see the "Safeness" factor being an issue.

The problem for Disney will come when someone is hurt badly in a fight. This video is on youtube for the world to see. A lawyer representing someone in a possible future event may use this footage. He would be able to find out what happened as a consequence of the Epcot brawl. If there were no consequences for the brawl participants in this incident or other incidents, his argument could include something like, " Disney did not do its best to insure the safety of its guests by allowing these people to remain in the parks."

 

[peg110]

The problem for Disney will come when someone is hurt badly in a fight. This video is on youtube for the world to see. A lawyer representing someone in a possible future event may use this footage. He would be able to find out what happened as a consequence of the Epcot brawl. If there were no consequences for the brawl participants in this incident or other incidents, his argument could include something like, " Disney did not do its best to insure the safety of its guests by allowing these people to remain in the parks."

This can only be a problem IF those are the exact same people causing the other incident. Without additional information however, any good lawyer could argue that a single event, relatively minor in nature, is not cause for ejection or banning. Let's face it; As appalling as the incident was, and as far as we know, no one was seriously injured and it appeared to be just tempers flaring and as such is a minor incident compared to what it could have been. Now if actual injuries (broken bones, bleeding, etc...) had occurred that might change things a little bit.

Again, I have no doubt that Disney is doing what it feels is right to protect their bottom line.

 

[Disneychick75]

This can only be a problem IF those are the exact same people causing the other incident. Without additional information however, any good lawyer could argue that a single event, relatively minor in nature, is not cause for ejection or banning. Let's face it; As appalling as the incident was, and as far as we know, no one was seriously injured and it appeared to be just tempers flaring and as such is a minor incident compared to what it could have been. Now if actual injuries (broken bones, bleeding, etc...) had occurred that might change things a little bit.

Again, I have no doubt that Disney is doing what it feels is right to protect their bottom line.

It can become a problem at Disney if there is a pattern of fights at Disney with no consequences and someone is injured down the road.

 

[peg110]

It can become a problem at Disney if there is a pattern of fights at Disney with no consequences and someone is injured down the road.

Hence my comment from above (which is now below)

Even in law enforcement, you have to establish a "Pattern" of behavior before taking the "Extreme" steps. A pattern of 1 incident is typically not enough. Even 2 is not (generally) sufficient (depending on the type of incident). Once you get to three, I think you can see that a pattern starts to emerge

The pattern may be a single person causing multiple problems, OR perhaps a single type of event where problems keep occurring with multiple people. For example if "Issues" continually occur at the "Merge" point on the TT ride, and no one addresses it, then yes, it could be trouble for Disney.

In either case, you can pretty much be certain that the powers to be at Disney are well aware of issues that arise that are of a potential impact and that they have policies in place to deal with it. You don't get that far along in business and that big like Disney without make the right decision more often then not. They are driven by the "Bottom Line" and law suits (successful or not) will impact that bottom line.