An ordinary December afternoon at Capital City Mall in Pennsylvania took a sharp and violent turn when a brawl erupted in the parking lot — an incident that has now led to criminal charges against four women, one of whom is also facing a child endangerment charge.
Authorities say the altercation, which occurred just before 12:30 p.m. on December 13, was no fleeting scuffle. It was physical, public, and alarming enough to be captured on both mall surveillance cameras and by bystanders’ cell phones.
The footage helped investigators piece together a troubling sequence of events that now places all four women — Oreal O. Dykes, 26; Kajah Manice Dalisa George, 30; Messiah Ali Cloud, 21; and Carrie L. Bowman, 46 — at the center of an active criminal case.
Infant thrown from stroller during fight in mall parking lot; mother arrested, police say: https://t.co/khAaE3pLRo pic.twitter.com/7zphh0hauZ
— WAVE (@wave3news) December 18, 2025
Each of the women has been charged with simple assault, but Dykes faces a particularly serious additional charge: endangering the welfare of a child. According to police, Dykes — who is the daughter of Bowman — was pushing a stroller with her infant child when she allegedly abandoned it to engage in the fight.
A brief moment later, she reportedly returned, not to remove her child from harm’s way, but to shove the stroller back into the middle of the conflict and kick one of the people involved, who was lying on the pavement.
The result? The stroller overturned with the four-month-old baby still inside — and unsecured by a safety strap, no less. Authorities say Dykes then picked the infant up from the tipped stroller. The scene, already chaotic, now carried implications well beyond simple assault — with a baby caught in the middle of adult violence.
According to investigators, Cloud and George were the instigators, and Dykes and Bowman later joined the melee. The altercation left participants bloodied and bruised, with Cloud and George sustaining facial injuries and Bowman reporting a swollen eye, abrasions, and bruises.
Dykes was arraigned before Judge Kathryn H. Silcox and released on $1,000 bail. Her preliminary hearing is set for February 5. As for the other defendants, court documents have yet to be released, leaving their legal paths unclear for now.
