Three mothers campaigning for the right to breast-feed in public say they were harassed by security guards while nursing inside a mall.

Diana Hitchens, Autumne Murray and Jessica Hitchens staged a "nurse-in" at the Hollister store at the Concord Mall in Wilmington, Del., on Saturday.

The protest was a response to an alleged incident at a mall in Houston, Texas, in which a mother claimed a Hollister manager threw her out for breast-feeding inside the store.

According to Delaware state law, women are allowed to breast-feed in any public or private location.

Read more stories at NBC10.com

The mothers carried posters which read, “Hey Hollister, my baby has a right to eat. It’s the law,” as well as “Normalize breast-feeding in public. Do you eat in public? Why shouldn’t our babies?”

“We walked through the store and the employees asked if we needed help with anything,” said Diana Hitchens of Elkton, Maryland. “We were actually nursing as we were walking through the store.”

But moments after they staged a sit-in, mall security arrived.

“Two security guards walked up to us,” said Autumne Murray of Elkton, Maryland. “They started questioning us and asking us why we were exposing ourselves and saying that we needed to leave or cover up. We got in an argument with them about it for a little bit and then they left.”

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When mall security returned, they brought along a Delaware State Trooper who was on routine patrol, according to state police.

“He was asking if we were exposing ourselves saying that the security guards said we were exposing ourselves and that we could be kicked out of the mall if we didn’t cover up,” Murray added.

Delaware State Police told NBC10 they are considering the incident a “civil matter” between the three women and the mall.

Concord Mall security and customer service employees referred NBC10 to their superiors who return to work on Monday, and asked reporters to leave the parking lot.

KARE 11 TV

This image taken from a YouTube video and aired on KARE 11 TV shows someone throwing a chair at people inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., on Monday.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- More security officers were patrolling the nation's largest mall on Tuesday after a series of fights among dozens of young adults and juveniles broke out Monday afternoon, the day after Christmas and one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Police arrested at least nine individuals for disorderly conduct after a fight that started in the Mall of America's food court spread throughout the mall, said Cmdr. Mark Stehlik with the Bloomington police department.

Mall officials briefly ordered a lockdown as shoppers fled into stores that shut their doors as those fighting rushed by.

Some witnesses said the melee had the feel of a "smash and grab" flash mob that knocked down shoppers and grabbed items from them as well as kiosks, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

"I was on the third-floor railing and saw a massive group of people" on the first floor, said Makenzie Shofner, 15, of Maple Plain, Minn. "It looked like they were trying to pull people's stuff out of their bags."

"A lot of parents (were) on their cell phones trying to find their kids," added Jennifer Reiland of Burnsville, Minn. "This was a harrowing experience for myself, my mother and my 5-year-old daughter."

Dan Jasper, a mall spokesman, said no significant injuries were reported but called the incident "disturbing."

"As a preventive measure we will ramp up security even more this week to make sure it doesn't happen again," Jasper said.

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At one point at least 30 police officers were on the scene to respond, restoring order inside the mall after an hour.

Fights continued outside the grounds for a brief time.

Reuters contributed to this report.