A southern-Maine community Facebook page with a mission of promoting nothing but motherhood and apple pie – and downplaying controversy – shut off public reaction to a scary holiday melee created by teenage thugs.
The Biddeford + Saco Community Group with 34,000 followers found it too much to bear after a Biddeford mother posted about her family being terrorized at the city’s riverfront Rotary Park.
So the group moderators shut off comments, blocking followers from discussing Christine Huber’s post after dozens expressed sympathy with what happened to her and her family.
Huber said she was at the park when “a large, rowdy group of unsupervised teenagers was causing a major disturbance.
“They were acting aggressively, pushing our smaller children in the water, and completely refusing to listen to adults,” Huber added. “Shockingly, they even ignored the direct orders of the lifeguards on duty, and their parents were nowhere to be found.”
“While we were at the river,” she said, “it was getting really intense; the kids were even splashing me and throwing sand at us.”
Huber said she plans to file a complaint with the Biddeford Recreation Department.
Dozens of Biddeford-Saco residents expressed sympathy for Huber’s Facebook post before the page administrators decided they didn’t need the negative publicity, shutting down further comments.
“Commenting is turned off for this post,” read a canned Facebook message from moderators to readers Saturday.
The 72-acre park along the shore of the Saco River has a list of rules governing public behavior including no drinking but evidently lifeguards were overwhelmed trying to enforce them.
The Main Street recreation area includes boat launch, athletic fields, picnic grounds, cross-country trails and disc golf course.
