Fights, drugs, weapons and vandalism, this is what business owners say students from MacArthur High School are bringing to a shopping center every day, just across the street from their school shortly after school gets out.
Across the street from MacArthur High School in Irving is a similar scene that plays out daily after the end of the school day.
“They’ve just been getting crazier and crazier,” Jose Pulido, who owns Select Tattoo Studio.
Pulido says more and more students continue to take over the shopping center that’s home to his business and several others.
“They fight, there is blood involved, there is guns, there’s drugs. We have seen everything,” Pulido said.
Pulido said the violence and vandalism have escalated for the past four years and have now reached a tipping point.
“They broke my window one time because they were fighting one kid, pushed the other one,” Pulido said.
Pulido has done everything he can to try to protect his business from vandalism and the students loitering in the area, even setting up an alarm system on his phone that goes off when the students are on his property.
Irving Police said Friday they have increased patrols in the area and are working with school resource officers to identify the students involved in criminal activity captured on video.They could also face school disciplinary action.
“Somebody’s going to get hurt, and then they’re going to say, well, nobody told us. Sounds like they’ve been told,” Josh Journeay said.
Journeay said he saw another business’ windows smashed on his first visit to Pulido’s tattoo shop.
Pulido hopes to see more law enforcement around to send an even louder message.
“We can have a police officer here in at least for a month, you know? So they see that this is not a place where they can do their crazy stuff,” Pulido said.
NBC 5 has reached out to Irving ISD for a comment, but has not yet heard anything back at the time of publishing.