So many opportunities for common sense to prevail in this case. . .starting with the students. McDonalds is a hangout after many of the PNHS sporting events - are there not fire codes for capacity and local loitering ordinances in place? Part of the blame should clearly be placed on the restaurant for not taking action quickly enough. If they are denying the police access - I will donate so our local law enforcement can purchase a coke at the drive through and be present. We live in a great community - this would be a shame for some kid to really get hurt in a preventable situation. . .

Call Joliet or Bolingbrook PD and ask how they handle this situation. . .I am sure all will be enlightened as to how quickly they respond to potential issues - whether or not the local place "allows" access. Many local restaurants are locked and denied access for periods of time after high school sporting events.

I feel that parents need to be aware of where their kids are and what they are doing. We need to stop pointing the finger at everyone else. My kids know that they would be in so much trouble if they did something like that. If there are no consequences for such behavior - why should they stop?

I believe that the real problem is that there are not enough businesses or teen hangouts in North Plainfield to handle the large population of students.

who is writing the headlines for the patch? Near riot?...McDonalds Melee? Definition of MELEE: a confused struggle; especially : a hand-to-hand fight among several people. from the story only two student where taken by the police for chanting and standing on tables...I never read about the hand-to hand fight at McDonalds. ..also had an issue at mcdonalds two weeks prior...Last time North played East was Jan 6th...Sound more like a PHNS issue..I guess the Chant "we own mcdonalds" was accurate

having worked in some other high schools, where groups i.e. gangs actually fight and use weapons over drug territory. a rivalry crowd geting alittle too wound up? if that is as bad as it gets in plainfield, i think things will be ok folks. really. good kids, poor ways of expressing.

Sounds like McDonalds wants it both ways. They want to squeeze every penny out of the high school crowd, but when it gets too rowdy, they want the police to solve THEIR problem. The reason I say it's their problem, is because at this point it's **predictable and preventable**. If police intervention (by the request of McDonalds!) is required once ot twice a year...ok. When it becomes as predictable as clockwork, McDonalds needs to help the police help them. Maybe the police should not respond at all unless management can articulate a specific crime taking place. If it's just "rowdy kids"...too bad, so sad.

If this issue repeats itself, what then? The parents have been notified by the school, the kids have been warned, and the issue has been publicized community wide.

Will McDonald's still be blamed at this point? Perhaps the school administration or parents' association can take charge and provide better post game alternatives to rioting.

One of many small problems which lead up to this is that kids are in school all day being taught by liberal, hand-wringing teachers who the kids know they can safely ignore. The vast majority of their time is spent amongst impotent "authority" figures. Then they have a police interaction and regress to toddler-tantrums when, OMG, orders have follow-through. ADULTS CAN'T TOUCH ME!!!! FIGHT THE POWER AT MCDONALDS!

So does this mean all the students go to Burger King now?

people you must first understand that this is nothing more than yellow journalism. for those of you who do not know what that it is, it is simply put, blowing up a story and skewing and making it very far from the actual story. there was no "near riot" situation. as a matter of fact the situation did not become tense until the plainfield police department came in abusing their power, and unjustly arresting and charging students for disorderly conduct. had they never arrived the situation would have been pleasent, police intervention in this case did nothing more than to cause problems.my real question is where were the police when there was a fight at this particular mcdonalds. i remember these people brawling for at least 5 minutes. then they left, went through the drive through got their meal and left. although other people on this particular night were arrested for simply wanting to get their meal that they paid for. the plainfield police department took a situation and attempted to create an example out of it. instead of kicking paying customers out they should have been removing loiterers.

What example are we showing these kids when the police are dropping the f bomb ? As they walked in they told the kids to get the f out of here. Really? I think there is something to be said about that. All these kids are doing is looking for a place to meet, have something to eat and socialize. Yes there was a fight in there a few weeks back and the kids fighting didn't even go to either school. Should we segregate them ? One group at mc ds and one group at bk ? I thought our country was beyond that. How about an officer sit inside for an hour ? He's getting paid for sitting in his car on a side street anyways. This is nothing new. Teens have been meeting for the last hundred years. Where did you go when you were a teen ? The forest preserve? The park? Hung out on someones block? If more than 5 teens are together they are considered a gang in this town. They can't hang out at parks or on a corner. These are all good kids it is up to us adults as it was with our parents and their parents to keep order.

I'm a senior at east and these "riots" have been going on for years and this paticular mcdonalds, and no physical fights ever occured. So everyone is freaking about this now....because? This explains why karen sorenson works for the world famous plainfield patch, lol.

*at not and..

I think it's so funny that the Plainfield Police and these random parents think that just because North and East are "rivals" means that we all hate eachother...we don't. In any given situation we would all have eachothers backs at any point in time. For parents to say that North is "disrespectful" has absolutely no clue. We go to a school with the HIGHEST expectations and they don't let anything slide. We all are at Mcdonald's every friday but the second Plainfield police have nothing better to do then send "all 8" cops to the Mcdonald's where nothing was going to happen. I have NEVER seen a maximum capacity sign in Mcdonald's nor have I seen a fight between people from North and East. I have seen kids who graduated years ago fight but that should not reflect on us. We'll all just find somewhere else to hang out...this has been blown completely out of proportion to the point where parents are acting immature when commenting. As teenagers we are defending ourselves not blaming other people for why we act the way we do or bringing up things others schools did like almost every parent I've seen comment on these articles. Get over it, we'll all be there Friday night :) PLAINFIELD ALL DAY! That includes every Plainfield school!

And on Tuesday it was mostly North kids, what are we all going to do, brawl eachother? No...these are the days that all of us teenagers are going to remember when we get older. Going to Mcdonald's after games and being able to see our FRIENDS who got transfered over the East. I would love to know what was going through Karen's head while she writing this

They are really going to waste tax payers money to send letters home to parents because the PPD over reacted! Don't waste the money and save a tree! Why doesn't Tom Hernandez just make one of his famous calls to the students home. You all know where that letter is going to end up!

>> I have seen kids who graduated years ago fight but that should not reflect on us.

Oh, so there ARE fights. Hmmm. Ok. Omg, that should be like, TOTALLY OBVIOUS, to the outside observer.

From a mother of a HS student, (not at either HS involved) This is obviously an issue that needs to be handled. For the people that say there has been no issues, obviously there is, previous incidents documented on cell phones videos, police responded here NUMEROUS times in the recent weeks. Who do you think calls the police there?? Mcdonalds, other students or the family in there prior to these kids acting out of control. Anwer this ques, if you and your family are in there and 5 min later the restaurant is over taken with 200-300 kids, what do you do. Watch kids shove each other and verbally argue??? What happens when some gets hurt up there? Fight? slips on floor, falls off table, crashes a car leaving the lot? The police are doing there job as law enforcement so does the kids, parents, mcdonalds and schools. I have driven by 1 time and it appears the restaurant across the street (vito and nicks) is taken over also. Im sure they are not happy about the cars parked in their parking lot and taking them up from normal paying customers. Lets look at the big picture people....

Don't be silly, Sarah. "Healthy school rivalry", expressed by standing-room only crowds of chanting juveniles inside a small restaurant certainly trumps the rights of anyone who might may have previously occupied the same space as a paying customer.

I think the police over-reacted by responding (at all) to a service call regarding a venue with a precedent of fights. Oh...right...I forgot it's not current students who're fightings, it's recent graduates. Next time that happens, the person who calls the police should say: "There is a fight, but I want to let you know that it's not current high school students, it appears to be recent graduates...so...make sure that when you show up, you immediately recognize that important distinction."

Parents, you are the problem...you encourage this nonsense...at the freshman football game last fall the PEHS parents were literally in the end zone yelling, chanting and cheering. The ref's kept commenting as well! School rivals are normal, this "my kid is the best" attitude is not. Your child isn't the best, fastest, smartest...love them anyway, other parents will too and move on. The more you try to persuade people that they are, the dumber you look, and the less talented your child looks.

Hugo, I was not there and either were you. Its your biased opinion on what actually occurred there on the numerous incidents documented there. Students recorded on a cell physically fighting, that does NTSC sound like a healthy rivalry.....come on

Your wrong Hugo, just because a group comes in there to cause a disturbance does not trump anybody. Your completely wrong when u say this. So my family should just leave because they wanna act out of control.

I was kidding, Jason. Of course, an obnoxious crowd (for whom seating doesn't physically exist), should not supercede the rights of other patrons who were already there minding their own business.

The whole reason this occurs is the lack of parenting. Kids these days are brought up to believe they can do nothing wrong and mommy and daddy will pay whatever to get them off. We need to go back to the old days when if it kid talked back to a teacher or school official he got slapped right upside the head.

Also, if your biggest complaint about the police is because the said the "f-bomb" then get a life. I'm sure your kids hear all the time when mommy and daddy are yelling at each other and eventually need to call the police to settle it. Maybe you should all not worry so much about commenting about who was right or who was wrong and go be a f-in parent to you kids.

This is a big deal to entitled brats. Teachers don't swear, raise their voice, or put their hands on kids. Therefore, the rest of the world shall follow suit. Trophy babies can't be tarnished by such rough treatment...even if they themselves swear, raise their voices and put hands on others.

The day of thinking that this is just "Kids stuff" is over. To many adults want to compare today's young adults with the way it was when they were in high school. Things have changed and the violence bar is much higher.

PNHS, PEHS, who cares??! You're all the same and so are your schools. Remind your kids of that. It's like arguing over who's bigger white trash. People from Tulsa, OK or people from Oklahoma City? Too bad there are no more vacant country roads left in Plfd to help alleviate their frustrations; so they meet at McDonald's? How lame. You can't drink beer and smoke cigarrettes there!

Having read all the above comments, I first want to say "thank you" to the Plainfield Police Department for their efforts in disbursing the crowd before a potentially volatile situation occurred, and reporter, Karen Sorenson for reporting the story, and also for the PPD and Dist. 202 School Officials for meeting and mapping out a plan to deal with this situation.
As a retired A.P. of a neighboring high school district, in charge of student discipline, I know first hand, the potential danger that exists in a crowd of rival, unsupervised adolescents after a game. Parents who were not "directly supervising" their children, may not realize the gravity of the situation. Also, many of the commentators may not have been in a situation where they had to disburse emotionally charged, disruptive, rival groups of students, and try to maintain the safety and security of those students and others in the restaurant. It is a difficult task, but one which is absolutely necessary. I am certain no one wants to see our students or community members hurt, and in a crowd, like the one Tuesday night, common sense should prevail. Violence CAN, and DOES erupt very quickly in these situations. It is my hope that the parents, students, and community will recognize that the safety and security of our students is of primary concern, and will support our community officials as they strive to address the situation.