http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/parents-ruin-easter-egg-hunt_us_56f7e38be4b014d3fe23556eA free Easter egg hunt that was supposed to be a fun event for children turned into chaos on Saturday as unruly parents stormed the field, pushing, shoving and even stealing children’s candy from their baskets, outraged parents and organizers say.
“The parents just bum-rushed that area,” Nicole Welch told local news station WFSB-TV of the scene outside the PEZ Visitor Center in Orange, Connecticut. “When my son left, he had a broken basket and was hysterically crying.”
The center’s general manager, Shawn Peterson, said event organizers had spread more than 9,000 eggs across three fields that were sectioned off per age group. Before kids had a chance to start hunting, however, parents were racing on the field to gobble up the candy-filled eggs.
“So we started talking to people and say, ‘Hey, this is supposed to start at a certain time,’” he told WFSB-TV. “Well, that lasted about a minute and everyone just rushed the field and took everything.”
Many other parents expressed their outrage on the center’s Facebook page, and claimed their children left empty-handed. Joe Tomasco wrote that his 4-year-old grandson was trampled and that adults raided his basket.
“It was like a friggin riot,” he added.