Boys fishing in West Lakes threatened, intimidated by adults in viral video

Adults have been filmed threatening and intimidating two 13-year-old boys fishing in West Lakes, as the public express shock at the tirade. Watch it here.

A group of adults has angrily threatened and intimidated a group of young, teenage boys who were fishing in a West Lakes pond.

In a video shared online, a group of adults appear to take action to protect the natural wildlife at West Lakes after they spotted some boys with their fishing rods in the pond.

It begins with at least four adults yelling at the kids, demanding they leave and threatening them with the police.

A man then grabs a young boy’s bag and flings it from the island onto the lawn.

The boy can be seen protesting and saying “You can’t do that.”.

Another adult responds, stating “You ruin the environment; we ruin your things. You ruin our things; we ruin your things.”.

A man, right, takes a child's backpack and throws it away. Picture: Facebook

A man gets up close to the boy’s phone while he was filming. Picture: Facebook

The incident then escalated as the adults instructed the group of boys to completely leave the public area, and appearing to push them away by encroaching on their personal space.

One woman went so far as to clap in the boy’s face.

And another older man was seen and heard yelling profanities at individual boys including, “the police is on their way”, “you take this phone away”, “piss off”, “you go away”, as well as “shut the f —k up” and “f —k off”.

Then the same man leans into the camera and yells once more “You go away … Fk you!”.

The boys eventually dispersed from area, taking their bikes, bags, and fishing rods.

The incident happened just weeks after a group of locals called for a fishing ban at Freshwater Lake.

One of the adults in the video - a woman - has spoken to The Advertiser on Tuesday, following the video sparking controversy online.

The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the community had been experiencing an ongoing issue with teenagers in the area generally, who had been committing a “soup of mischief” on the weekends and after school.

However, when asked if the teenagers they threatened on Saturday were known to previously cause trouble in the neighbourhood, she admitted she wasn’t sure.

“Look, really, I don’t know... I really don’t know because there are lots of kids,” she said.

The woman admitted she, along with the other adults, acted out of line.

“In hindsight, I think everybody is feeling very embarrassed about the behavior,” she said.

“I guess we’re all human and we all make mistakes and we can all get revved up but in any case, as adults, we were expected to show a better way of managing issues.

“We’re all very sorry that this has come to this.”

Meanwhile City of Charles Sturt chief executive Paul Sutton has revealed the children were not doing anything wrong from a legal standpoint.

Charles Sturt CEO Paul Sutton said legally the children didn’t appear to be doing anything wrong. Picture: Supplied.

“The by-laws say that fishing is permitted in the lake – but the fishermen need to be more than six metres away from any property boundary,” Mr Sutton said.

“I think they probably were (six metres away) but I haven’t been down there with a tape measure to measure it out.”

However, by-laws are only enforceable over adults – not minors.

If minors are in contravention of the by-laws then council will contact SA Police.

But foremost, Mr Sutton was concerned over how the children were being treated in the video.

“I saw the video this morning and was really worried about the way the children were being treated,” he said on Tuesday.

“We don’t like to see that sort of hostility between community members – and clearly the residents that are around there are feeling upset about the activity around the lake – but from what I saw in the video the kids were really pretty well behaved.”

The recorded incident occurred this past Saturday, on April 5, at Delfin Island.

SA Police said they attended the “disturbance between two groups” and “no offences were disclosed.”

Both groups moved on from the area.

What our readers are saying

In response to the video, commenters have condemned the actions of the adults for a seemingly minor error.

“I’m all for the environment and believe in climate change. I also believe in kids !!!!!! What disgraceful behaviour by so called adults. How can we have a sensible conversation about environment and climate when people behave like complete idiots.” Mike

“Disappointing from older generation people who should know better. I bet they always talk about the “good old days where you could safely walk down the street”. The second young people start going outside and doing something leisurely, they disapprove and it’s actually them making the space unsafe. I fear we live in a time where people worry more about their property over their community.” Matthew

“Reprehensible behaviour from those adults. They could have handled it much better.” Stan

“Would they would prefer them in front of a screen? It saddens me the children of today have been forced to grow up surrounded by concrete with little or no backyard.” Paula

“It would be interesting to know the outcome of this. It appears that the boys were just fishing! What were the adults gripes regarding this!!” Anita

Originally published as Boys fishing in West Lakes threatened, intimidated by adults in viral video