Two teenagers have been arrested following the viral footage of a boy lobbing a heavy chair from the top floor of Westfield Stratford in London at the weekend, which narrowly missed shoppers below and could have easily resulted in serious injury or worse. Here’s the video in case you missed it:
Someone threw a footrest from the top floor in Stratford Westfield shopping center. pic.twitter.com/Fh46M34CfS
— London & UK Street News (@CrimeLdn) March 3, 2025
The Met have now confirmed the boys – aged 14 and 16 – have been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, which doesn’t quite feel like it’s doing justice to what we see in that video. I mean, criminal damage? They didn’t just damage the seat, they launched it into a crowd of shoppers who could have been seriously hurt or even killed.
@MPSNewham have arrested a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy following an incident that saw a heavy seat thrown from the third floor at @westfieldstrat shopping centre on Saturday, 1 March. They have been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and remain in custody.
— Newham MPS | North East BCU (@MPSNewham) March 4, 2025
In fact there is a category for “Criminal damage with intent to endanger life or reckless as to whether life endangered”, which you could argue is a more apt charge for what we witnessed in that clip. Although you would have to prove intent or that they were aiming at someone on the floor below, which would be hard to do given they were probably just d1cking around and thought it would be cool to watch a chair fall from a height and smash on the ground.
Who knows? Maybe now that these boys are in custody the Met can properly investigate and bring more serious charges after they question them. Or maybe they’ll get off lightly because after all, they’re only young and stupid. Either way, let’s hope they learn from this experience and realise what an utterly stupid and dangerous thing it was to do.
For the dude who forced 2 carjackers to fight each other after he caught them trying to steal his car, click HERE.
