Published: September 23, 2008 10:38 pm      

Police: City woman prompted teen fight posted on YouTube

A Johnstown woman was charged Tuesday by the city police with corrupting the morals of minors for encouraging two juvenile girls to fight with each other in the basement of her home.

A dark, grainy video of the fight and several spectators has been posted on the YouTube networking site, said Julie Wagner, the city’s juvenile officer.

Wagner filed the single charge against Denise Burt before District Judge Leonard Grecek.

Burt, 28, of the 100 block of Jacob Street, will be notified by mail to appear for an arraignment and a preliminary hearing Oct. 29 on the misdemeanor charge, Grecek’s office said.

Wagner alleged that Burt not only encouraged the fight, she also permitted other juveniles to watch the incident around 9 a.m. Sept. 18 at her house.

Burt allegedly told the two girls, both 16, to “wait a minute” while she moved piles of laundry to make room for the fight, Wagner said. The girls initially had a verbal confrontation on the woman’s front porch and shouted obscenities at each other, the police officer said in a sworn affidavit.

One girl can be seen running down the basement steps and attacking the other girl, with the two then punching and slapping each her on the head.

One girl is seen getting the other girl down on the floor and then banging her head on the floor and hitting her, the police officer said.

At one point, a person can be heard saying, “We don’t want a murder,” and another person saying, “Can she breathe?”

At the end of the five-minute video, people are seen pulling the one girl off the other.

“The defendant did nothing to stop the violence,” Wagner said.

Neither girl required medical attention afterward, authorities said.