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Time to quash the flash mobs

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Flash mobs have been a menace for more than a decade, and it is time that law enforcement cracked down on them.

They’re no longer the cute social media phenomenon that used to appear in the early days of Internet video, when a crowd of strangers would magically appear in a public space to perform a dance and have a good time.

The same technology, and the same tactics, can be used to call upon crowds of young people to invade a neighborhood or even to loot a commercial district.

The involvement of large numbers of people often gives individual participants cover. Police can only arrest or identify a small proportion of the perpetrators. And by then, the damage is done.

We saw the devastation over the Fourth of July weekend in Newport Beach. The streets by the strand can often be a little loud and rowdy on holiday weekends, but nothing had prepared the beach community for the chaos that erupted when crowds went wild.

The sand — normally a broad expanse — was completely overrun, so much so that police........

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