Police break up large crowd of minors fighting in Pittsburgh's Market Square

A large gathering of young people in Market Square got out of control and ended with three people taken into custody.

According to Pittsburgh Public Safety, the incident happened around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, when around 40 people were gathered in the area of Market Square and Forbes Avenue, when a fight broke out.

Some of them started using pepper spray on each other, officials said.

"They need to do something," said Joe McGinnis, who lives nearby in Downtown. "They're hanging out here in the park, they're hanging out in what's going to be the beautiful Market Square with nothing to do."

Pittsburgh Public Safety said that when the crowd refused orders from police at the scene to leave the area, officers also deployed pepper spray to help control the crowd.

Seven minors were cited for disorderly conduct, officials said. 

"I don't know whose job it is to solve that, whether it's the city's or the school's, or frankly, the parents, but that energy needs to go somewhere, and not just hanging out in Market Square," said McGinnis.

Bob Wagner said that on a separate occasion, juveniles also caused chaos in his place of work. 

"It's really scary. I work at the Five Iron Golf, and kids ran down in there. They started throwing stuff around. They had to call the security from PPG," Wagner said.

Public Safety said that medics set up a decontamination area and treated around 20 people at the scene for exposure to the pepper spray.

No one needed to be taken to the hospital from the scene, and no officers were injured during the response, according to officials.