One of the teen suspects may have died in a head-on collision with a van in Santa Clarita less than an hour later, officials say. Chaos unfolded at a California shopping mall as a group of teenagers brazenly raced through a food court on dirt bikes. The suspects, all believed to be minors, drove two motorcycles at high speed through the Town Center Mall in Valencia, Santa Clarita, on Saturday. In a tragic turn of events, police belive that one of the riders, a 14-year-old boy, was killed that same evening following a head one collision just two miles from the shopping center.
![[The dirt bike riders drove dangerously close to a group of children eating inside the food court]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/12/newFile-2.jpg)
Cellphone footage, which has been circulating online, shows the rambunctious riders hurtling through a food court amongst pedestrians – including a group of children eating in a booth. The riders, which include two drives and one teen sitting on the back of the bike, were filmed sporting dark clothing without helmets, flailing their arms, and revving their motors through the mall.
![[One of the riders may have died in a traffic collision less than an hour later, just a few miles away from the Valencia mall, authorities say]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/12/Image-1.jpg)
Chris Hernandez, a restaurant manager at the mall, said the suspects managed to evade mall security adding it was slow to respond. Another food court employee said they’d seen other instances of dirt bikes being ridden through the mall in the past year.
No arrests have yet been made, but the motorcyclists could face felony charges, according to Sergeant Guillermo Martinez of the LA CO Sheriff’s Office. He said that authorities will be taking a “zero-tolerance approach,” telling the news station: “If we see it, we will either cite, confiscate, arrest or impound depending on what the circumstances are, but we are ramping up enforcement.”.
