Teens Starting Fire at La Mesa Park?

By an edhat reader

I’m curious if anyone also saw this or know of these kids from other similar instances. There were 4 teens, all Caucasian, 1 girl and 3 boys riding electric bikes recklessly around La Mesa Park.

They were cutting across the grass, going on the sidewalk around little kids on the playground, and riding down to the creek bed behind the park. They stopped at the benches on the path down to the bridge that crosses into the neighborhood over there and started 3 small fires, waist high, and were laughing and screaming trying to stomp them out.

They also were pretending to hit people with sticks as they rode past them by those benches. A fire truck came in response to those fires and the kids took off down the path to cross the bridge.

I’m just curious if anyone else saw or has had any similar experiences with this crew.

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Written by sbmama_lo

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12 Comments

  1. Sounds like lots of people have had experience with ill mannered young teens on ebikes near the Mesa. Surprised there hasn’t been some sort of Neighborhood Watch or something with pitchforks posse’d up and hunting them down. I jest, but seriously, these kids are getting to be too much it sounds.
    If they’re threatening people with physical harm and lighting fires, that’s enough for the police to get involved. CALL THE COPS. These kids need to be apprehended.

    • yes I did discreetly because I was with my toddler and unsure how these teens would react seeing me calling cops on them, I just didn’t want to risk it. But yeah the fire truck responded a few minutes later. I told them the direction the kids went and then I called 911 again to tell them directly because the firemen were tending to the burn areas and I wasn’t sure they’d call in time to get to those fast e-bikes

  2. the Mesa Brats are a bunch of undisciplined creeps. Two of them, boys, started a fire last year at SBCC in the upper lot near the stadium. two others tossing stuff off of the foot bridge onto cars below (this happens every year actually), numerous kids on ebikes have been banned from being on campus (SBCC). There are two groups that I’ve encountered, the Brats and one small group of good kids. The latter are respectful, polite, and are generally good kids. The other group are the trouble makers. The girls are way more reckless on their bikes than the boys that I’ve seen. I have two ebikes, owning and riding an ebike doesn’t make you a bad kid or a terror on wheels, being a brat that vandalizes things, taunts people, commits arson, exhibits self centered reckless behavior makes them bad kids.
    also, i hope that you called the PD and didn’t just pop onto Edhat and post….

    • Karma stated “ the Mesa Brats are a bunch of undisciplined creeps.”
      My kid rides his e-bike from San roque to Montecito regularly.
      The blurted district lines mean children from Montecito goto San Marcos, La Colina, DP, etc. aAnd vice verse.
      they have friends from soccer, football, etc & e-bikes makes it easy to travel to areas outside their neighborhood.

    • SBLETSGET – no one said they’re “Mesa residents” nor did anyone say their names. Even so, they ARE more likely to live near the Mesa than from Goleta or Montecito. They probably didn’t ride their bikes there from miles away just for the parks and shops.
      Parents of kids in this area need to be aware. Kids like this give other teens on ebikes a bad name. Not only that, they put innocent bystanders at risk of injury and now, apparently arson.

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