7-11 Robbery Flash Mob Renews Calls For Montgomery Co. Youth Curfew

Last week's flash mob robbery of a Germantown 7-11 has renewed calls for a teen curfew in Montgomery County. The council is expected to decide the matter in September and the flash mob attack is making the decision tougher.

County Executive Ike Leggett says most of the participants in the flash mob attack which happened at about 2 a.m., in the morning appeared to be juveniles, and this underscores the need to establish a teen curfew in Montgomery County

"You'll have, in my opinion, substantially large numbers of young people who will simply say, 'I know there's a curfew, I will not violate the curfew, I'm not going out late at night,'" Leggett says.

And that may have prevented the flash mob attack says Leggett, who proposed the curfew six weeks ago. The measure would prohibit minors from being out after 11 p.m. on weeknights or midnight on weekends, with some exceptions.

Montgomery County Council member Phil Andrews chairs the council's Public Safety Committee. He opposes the curfew and dismisses the notion that a curfew would have prevented the flash mob.

"There's no reason to think that young people who are willing to shoplift or commit another crime that has more serious consequences than violating a curfew would be deterred by a curfew," Andrews says.

The robbery was taped by surveillance cameras and police posted the video on You Tube. Detectives say that has allowed them to identify nearly half of the two dozen suspects.

Video: Flash Mob Robs Germantown 7-Eleven