A violent brawl involving a group of teenage girls broke out in Sydney’s CBD on Sunday night, with confronting footage showing the moment the fight escalated outside Town Hall station.
The incident, which took place on the eve of the Anzac Day public holiday in New South Wales, saw a group of young women fighting on the footpath near the busy intersection of George and Park Street.
Onlookers gathered around, watching in shock as the brawl descended into chaos, with one person claiming there were “undos” around – meaning undercover cops – and another replying that it made them “scared”.
The scene was captured by a passer-by, who submitted the footage anonymously to the social media account Crazy News Sydney, showing the fight move across various areas of the intersection.
In one clip, it appears that four teenage girls are kicking and punching someone who is either on the ground or lying in a garden bed.
In another, multiple girls are seen following one girl who is backing away before being hit and thrown to the ground on the tram tracks.
“Witnesses say things got heated quickly,” the caption of the clip reads.
At the end of the footage, a girl in a white top and denim skirt is seen being escorted to the back of a police paddy wagon, while another is restrained by officers on a nearby bench with her hands on her head.
The video has since gone viral, racking up hundreds of comments, with some noting that these incidents appear to be becoming more common.
“What is with teens these days? They all think they are gangsters these days, bashing people up,” one lamented.
“Kids are entitled these days,” another mused, while someone else questioned the type of parenting that raised these kids.
“They have a chip on their shoulder. It’s a disgrace,” another added.
Someone else described the scenes as “toxic”.
“We should get lockout laws for minors like Japan,” one person suggested.
Japan imposes strict curfews and restrictions on minors (under 18), who are generally banned from being in amusement centres, karaoke boxes, or gaming arcades after 10pm or between 11pm and 4am.
“Kids should absolutely not be allowed to run the streets! Impose curfews and tougher laws on these hoons or we’ll pay for it when it escalates further. Despicable,” another echoed.
“This is getting out of control,” someone else wrote.
Another local called the scene “embarrassing” and asked: “Why did no men try to break this up but stand around filming and watching?”
“Stop the fight instead of just watching and taking videos,” one comment, directed at the person filming, said.
News.com.au has contacted NSW Police for comment.
“I call it ‘lens syndrome’,” security and behavioural expert Scott Taylor previously told news.com.au about the phenomenon of filming a public fight rather than intervening or evacuating the area.
Mr Taylor, founder of Praesidium Risk and Resilience, consults to retailers, healthcare providers, mass-gathering organisers and government agencies on site risks, procedural enhancement and training.
When people are suddenly confronted with a dangerous situation, the typical response is one of the “three Fs”, Mr Taylor explained.
“It’s fight, flight or freeze. But we now need to add a fourth, it seems – film,” he continued.
He said this reaction can be “really troubling” – especially when you consider that people can become “desensitised” to dangerous or violent situations when viewing them on their phones while they’re filming.
“They disassociate a bit from what’s happening in front of them because they’re watching it through a screen,” Mr Taylor says.
“They’re putting themselves and others in danger.”
However, he noted that if it’s safe to do so and you’re not putting yourself or others at risk, filming can be valuable, as it can hold offenders accountable and deter repeat behaviour if the people involved see someone filming.
But he notes that safety should always be the priority.
Despite a flood of viral clips on social media, Australia is not in fact in the grips of a youth crime wave.
Youth offending has actually been on a long-term decline nationwide, even as violent videos dominate social media feeds.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that in 2023–24, there were 1764 offenders per 100,000 people aged 10-17, a 28 per cent decrease over ten years.
Assault rates are also down 23 per cent from their 2009–10 peak.
Experts say viral footage amplifies isolated incidents, fuelling a perception of rising violence that doesn’t align with the numbers.
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