The increased police presence at the Walden Galleria will be in place through the remainder of the holiday season, mall management confirmed Thursday, in response to three fights and erroneous reports of shots being fired. 

"The incidents that took place between disorderly youth acquaintances are absolutely unacceptable, incredibly disruptive and undermine the tireless efforts made by our security team, community partners and local law enforcement agencies to make Walden Galleria a year-round family friendly destination," Pyramid Management Group, the mall's owner, said in a statement released Thursday. "We are cooperating fully and actively participating with the Cheektowaga Police Department in the ongoing investigation and remain committed to providing a safe environment for our guests, employees and tenants." 

Additionally, the mall will "strictly enforce" its parental escort policy, requiring anyone under 18 to be accompanied by an adult from 4 p.m. until close on Friday and Saturday evenings. 

Cheektowaga Police Chief David Zack told reporters that, given the number of people at the mall on a very busy evening, things could easily have been much worse. 

The biggest fight involved around 10 people, police said, but hundreds of calls were made suggesting the crowd was much bigger. However, Chief Zack said, it's likely multiple calls were for the same incident or were reporting the same people. 

He reiterated that there were no injuries to civilians or officers during the altercations. 

In all, six juveniles were taken to the police station. An 18-year-old male was charged with disorderly conduct and a juvenile was charged with menacing for knocking over a metal sign, which many people believed was a gunshot. 

Most of the people involved in the altercations were juveniles, meaning even if additional crimes were committed, no other charges could be made. 

With more than 20 entrances to the mall and a crowd of more than 100 responding fluidly to officer movement and reports of fights, he said officers have to "try and control it and direct as well as you can. There's no plan you can put in place to control that. ... No one got hurt, no one got hurt responding. No civilians were hurt. This didn't result in mass arrests, there were no complaints of police brutality. This could've been a far worse scenario."

Cheektowaga police were called to the mall around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday for a series of three fights that quickly created a chaotic scene. When some of the people involved in the fights knocked over a sign, police were alerted to possible gunshots fired in the mall, a claim that was later deemed false. 

Many stores decided to close their metal security gates in response to the commotion and enacted "lockdown" procedures. Some stores reopened at 8:30 p.m., police said.