A series of brawls on the beach forced Silver Beach in St. Joseph to close early on Memorial Day.

A video of one fight was posted to the individual Facebook page of beach-goer Keonna Lewis.

The video appears to show young girls doing the fighting, while the arrest of one 16 year old boy suggests that the group had ties to his hometown of Elkhart.

At one point, one officer in the video uses pepper spray but police were reluctant to over-react.

“We broke up the fights and people would take off running you know and we didn't start chasing them. That just causes more havoc and problems,” said Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey.

Bailey says as many as 3,000 visitors were on the beach when a group of 50 to 60 ‘trouble makers’ arrived.

The sheriff says that the first fight broke out about 7 p.m. as the group congregated near the concession stand/ restrooms.

Berrien County Parks Director Brian Bailey said the obvious choice was to close the entire park. “That's why the decision was made to shut it down before it got dark, and to prevent anything from escalating further.”

Silver Beach’s closing time is 10:00 p.m. On Monday, with help from the Benton Harbor Police and Michigan State Police, officers had pretty much cleared the park by 9:00 p.m.

The video also shows some of the faces of the youth involved. “It appears that these kids were from Elkhart so I tell Elkhart parents watch this YouTube video and if those are your children, talk to them about their behavior,” Bailey said.

Sheriff Bailey says four deputies were on duty in the park on Monday—instead of the usual two.

Earlier Version:

A large fight forced police to shut down Silver Beach in St. Joseph, Michigan.

Police cleared the beach before sundown Monday night after a disturbance,

There's no word on how many people were involved.

Police say there were no injuries.

The attached video of the fight was originally posted to Facebook by Keonna Lewis.

You may recall that the beach was the scene of a large fight involving about 200 people last June.

Several people were arrested during a riot at the beach on the Fourth of July in 2015.

Police have increased patrols at the beach in recent years.