Shababniks are OTD youth who are recruited and egged on by police and ShaBaK shtinkers in charedi dress who themselves are OTD and want to make the whole community look bad. Another term used for them is “plitei hayeshivot” – refugees from the yeshivas. They do not listen to any rabbonim, unless you consider Yoilish Krauss, an obvious shtinker, to be a rov. (He is a rav, but his title is in effect only after shkia.)
I saw the same types that Popa saw in the same area. When I saw them one Friday night years ago, I was walking with a friend, who today is a city councilman for Aguda/UTJ, and who is an amateur chazzan. He started to sing: “Shabbos hee melizoik…” to the shababnikim (and we know what follows that phrase). The kids were bothering more frum Yiden with their noise than they were doing anything to close a street that hardly gets any traffic anyway on Shabbos.