In a city with a terrible lack of park space, Santiago Park is a veritable oasis. The park is located in north Santa Ana, within easy walking distance of the MainPlace Mall. The new CityPlace shopping center is located right across the street.
I like to walk my dog there, along the trail on the north side of the park. I was doing that just yesterday, in the morning, when we came across two men who were loitering on either side of the trail. As I passed them I turned around and took a picture of them with my Blackberry phone. Then I called the Santa Ana Police Department.
You can see the picture of the two men above. I could not discern what they were up to. They were just lurking there. Below, in the riverbed, another guy was loitering on a bike. And it got worse.
I took my dog over the foot bridge on the east side of the park and we doubled back. As we did so we spotted another guy, this time standing in the brush. Waiting. For Lord knows what. I took his picture too.
My dog and I also walked along a dirt path along the riverbed, on the south side, and spotted a pair of vinyl gloves and a pair of pants hanging in the shrubs. We saw another pair of the gloves on the north trail. These are the sort of gloves used by nurses. See the pictures below.
And yet another guy was lurking by the cabin on the west side, near the playground.
Why are all these men loitering in Santiago Park?
The police responded within twenty minutes. A park ranger showed up and I spoke to him. He said that he routinely chases men out of the park along the trails and also under the overpass and the aforementioned bridge, and in the bathrooms alongside the tennis court. The officer told me that men come to the park to hook up – and to have sex.
I went back to the park the same day, at dusk. The park closes at dark, so I didn’t go in, but I walked around the park. Found many instances of graffiti and trash.
Ironically, graffiti in Santa Ana’s Artist Village is always covered up by the City of Santa Ana, right away. But guess what? The founder of the Artists Village, Don Cribb, lives in the Park Santiago Neighborhood – and he is on a city committee that is examining ways to improve Santiago Park!
I witnessed another strange incident in my evening visit to the park. A car pulled into the park entrance on Main St., as the barricade was left open. A young lady walked up the sidewalk to the car, and got in. The car zoomed off and got on the 5 Freeway, due north on the carpool lane. Is the park being used by johns who are meeting prostitutes there? Hard to say, but they could have met at a number of shopping centers. Instead they met at a dark park.
Sure enough, a cop came by later, but too late to catch them.
I will say this – our police department is very responsive and they are trying to police the park. It just isn’t working out the rest of the time, when the cops aren’t there.
A new movie just came out called the “Lovely Bones.” In it a family grieves for their fourteen year old daughter, who was killed by a perverted neighbor. How soon before we find some lovely bones at Santiago Park? Already one transient killed another, about a year and a half ago. The killer was never found.
Click here to contact the Santa Ana City Council. Click here to contact Councilman Carlos Bustamante, who represents the Santiago Park area.
Here are a few more of the pictures I took yesterday:
Landscapers were picking up trash at Santiago Park, but a lot more trash lay on the trails and in the brush
Why are there discarded vinyl gloves at the park?
Graffiti near the Main St. entrance to the park
Evidence of homeless occupants at the park
More graffiti near the park
Yep, shopping carts and more graffiti
This is where police say that men are often found hooking up at Santiago Park. The trail leads under Main St. to the Discovery Science Center
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I would suggest Mr. Art you do not go to the park anymore unless you are wanting a pull for money… the gloves are a protectant – if you get my drift?
Santa Ana is such a horrible place and will only get worse. The supervisors should have their heads on a stick for allowing the decay of this city..
It is really sad, i saw some beautiful pictures of this city before it became a third world whole!
very sad!
Police will tell you this has been a So. Cal. homosexual cruising spot for many, many, years which they say is promoted on the internet. About 10 year ago a Police officer, I think his name was Owen, was in charge of a task force to try to stop it. The Park Santiago association also had volunteer bike patrols to call police. They nearly wiped it out but then a homosexual rights group threatened the city with law suits and the police backed off. It’s a sick situation and will take pressure from the city council to do anything. They are there day and night and sadly many of them are in suits meeting young Mexican boys. Thank you Art for having the guts to take the photos and write about it.
Another long-time trouble spot for prostitution is the corner of Harbor & MacArthur. I work near there and used to take walks around the block occasionally…until I spotted enough used condoms on the ground to make me sick to my stomach, and actually got asked by a male if I wanted a boyfriend. I don’t walk around the block anymore.
I use to take my children to play on the big slides. I notice there always men a round wathing and my children, it made me very uncomtable. t couldn`t let my children run around there it was to scary. so we stop going. my children are always asking to go there ,but tell them to many weired going on there. so now we drive to go to another park, but my kids don`t like the the park we go to. they enjoy the big slides that the other park has. thanks to these perverts our children cann`t enjoy the park. shame on these men.
Excellent Job!
I will never take my children there! Scary.
I never knew this. eeeeee!
WTG U Art!! If more residents and others that frequent this park paid as much attention as you have to the freak show that is unfolding there daily this type of thing could and would stop! Thank You for having enough guts to do what you have and make others aware!
Jesus, you people have TOO MUCH time on your hands. I bet you keep a pair of binoculars to spy on your neighbors too.
Damn – Get a life for God’s sake.
Robert,
Really? Did you know that this post led to a decoy sweep of the park and nine perverts got arrested in one day? Do you think that is OK for these perverts to be having sex in a public park where there are kids playing? Maybe you are one of them…
I live in the neighborhood with my family and I want to enjoy the park. We know what is happening and it pisses us off, get a room already. Tear down the restrooms, put in more lights and increase fines/jail time.
My child and dog walk through there every day. The guys that empty the trash and clean the rest rooms have those vinyl gloves. Mystery solved. I saw the same gloves on the custodian. Like the other man wrote, you have too much time on your hands. You must be retired.
Btw: my husband is more nervous about me and the kid (AND our Shepard) with you and your sneaky camera and not gay men. He suggested that if you start taking pictures when HE is there (with us) you better use a very small camera because you will be digging out of a very “personal place”…
Cindy,
I teach bloodborne pathogens safety awareness to janitors. They use those gloves to evade contact with bodily fluids, such as what you find in bathrooms. They NEVER leave the gloves lying around.
The gloves I found at Santiago Park were on the train, and in the shrubbery.
The Santa Ana Police Department conducted a decoy sting operation after we reported on the subject of men lurking at the park and they arrested NINE MEN in one afternoon. Clearly we have a problem.
Tell your husband that if he elects to assault me he will be arrested. It will cost you a small fortune to bail him out.
Man, I’ve lived in the neighborhood by that park for several years now. You are making a big deal about lurkers in the park. From your post, I would be inclined to believe that you are a lurker yourself: walking through the park taking pictures of guys just hanging out in the park… were you lurking in the park at night to watch a hooker get into a car?
Man, I would hate to be your neighbor.
Now, i know you may be thinking that I am trying to look the other way. I see guys just standing around in the park when I run in the morning. I have come accustomed to finding rubber gloves and condoms just lying around. What do you expect. Are we not an urbanized area? Is it not a park with plenty of foliage? It happens, but not at the frequency you are claiming. I personally find someone walking some small breed dog more alarming than a couple of homosexuals going to the park to hook up. Sex happens. Before work and on off days, i run through the park and have never seen nearly as many lurking men as you make it seem there are. I have seen other runners, but as for people having sex in the bushes, none.
ITT: you are just seeing what you want to see.
men in bushes explanation: pomegranates and other fruit grow on the sides of the bike trail
men sitting in the park in the daytime explanation: it is a nice refreshing place to go, you do not have to put a sinister twist on everything
Graffiti: again, you are in an urban area and kids will obviously look for other ways to entertain themselves if they cannot go skate at the bridge because there are little metal bars preventing them from riding the curb or whatever they call it.
i rate you humorous… rofl (seriously, i rofled)
ursa,
Because of our coverage the park brush was cleared. It used to be common to find spent condoms and medical gloves on the trail – check out the pictures I took, they speak for themselves.
Sex happens but it should NOT happen in public parks, period. I am glad the SAPD already arrested some of these lurkers and I hope they do it again.
I used to live a few blocks away. One day I was riding my bike and looked up onto a hillside to see a naked man crouched on the ground. I had another follow me down Santiago blvd. one day when I was on my bike, just trying to drive right next to me. Why do we have to put up with this? It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight. Have some class and stay away from children’s areas. This has nothing to do with gay rights. If someone is so pathetic in their private life that they have lie and have sex with boys on their lunch hour so the wife doesn’t find out, or degrade themselves by having to pay for sex from strangers or have sex with them in a foul maggot-ridden public bathroom, they should save their money for therapy instead. It’s time we stopped treating any moron who’s mind extends no farther than their genitals as if they have rights. Human rights are for HUMANS, and should only extend to activities where you act like a decent human being, and not protect perverts and sickos.
wow thanks for postin this me n my son dad go there to walk around and enjoy the view and to think everytime we go i was scared of coyotes around now i have to be worried about men solitary lurkin around the park and i go there b4 i go to school to jog scary and n i would take my son to the big slide to play and i would tell him time to go i felt uneasy bein there you cant just enjoy anything anymore
If it is any consolation, the increased scrutiny seems to be working. I have not seen as many lurkers of late.
Its been a gay,gay park for 20 years
Please wake up
scary, i bike along that trail often.
Not to worry!!! The SAPD Mounted Unit has been working several times a month since October at the park..I heard that they had been arresting several subjects per night for being in the park after dusk plus people drinking etc. If you live in Park Santiago area you know that years ago the mounted unit worked the park for a long time and they made a great difference. Good job!!
Yes it is very troubling that this behavior occurs this park. It is Lewd conduct. However, there is a double standard in enforcement. I have called the park ranger on more that one occasion to report male and female couples lying on top of each other on top of park benches (most recently at the long slide area, there were 2 couples doing this! Heavily making out (or who knows what else) one couple had a blanket over them…do you think the police respond—NO! Another couple were doing it in their vehicle on the street to the entry of the park–called it in– the ranger asked if it were two men, they did not respond and later the discarded condom was on the curb. Granted there may be more male to male activity, but no one seems to care or enforce the lewd conduct statutes if there are men and woman exhibiting lewd conduct in public!
You are right. No one should be having sex in our park, regardless of their gender.
Good news. This Saturday you can help paint a mural at Santiago Park! http://newsantaana.com/2011/01/10/help-paint-a-mural-by-roberto-del-hoyo-at-santiago-park-this-saturday/
And you said Art, “My city is not a scummy city” Really?
Santa Ana’s youth are in a total free fall! This is due to poor parenting, a third world mentality as far as young women being impregnated and a severe lack of education! You have a third world mentality with a lowered standard of civility!
Where are your law enforcement, your parents and civility?
Michelle,
Sigh. Having a rough day are we?
I stopped by here to take a walk and wait to pick up my wife from work as she works nearby. I sat reading and noticed men standing around as mentioned above. There were also at least 5-6 men parked sitting in their car or sitting next to it in the small parking lot. I sat on the steps near the parkin lot and one guy pulled up in his car and kept staring at me, just sitting there. I kept hearing chatter all around me and didn’t see anyone. After about 20 mins, I felt it was Ike to leave. Needless to say, my experience there led me to search the net to see what is up with this park.
I will not be going back there and for everyone saying that his person takig pictures and reporting it to the police has too much time, you must be nuts or the ones who are lurking in the bushes!! He is only trying to help make it a better place and safer as well. I say if it looks suspicious, it probably is!
I never thought going to a park was such a crime for single males. I go to parks for walks, bike rides all the time glad to know if I stop to check out shrubbery or sit on a bench to take a breather i’m a lurking creep. Some of you have to much time on your hand posting pics of people on the net like this. Anyone could have taken your pic at anytime placed it on the net and wrote bad things about you, but choose not to I guess. Congrats on being creepier than everyone else in the park Rose the nosey neighbor. I searched the net to find what this park was cause I have drove by it and found some weirdo takes pics of unsuspecting guys and posts them on the net labeling them creeps thanks for keeping a non-gay non-creep away loser!
After I wrote this post the SAPD set up a sting operation and arrested 12 of these perverts.
Santiago Park is a city park. If you don’t live in Santa Ana you have no business coming to this park. It isn’t a county park.
Admin, I despise people like you. I really do.
Indubitably, you are the creep; and your mental process is similar to to that of a paranoid schizophrenic. Go ahead and call me out on how irrelevant and ignorant my opinion of you is. I just want to say “I’m having a rough f*cking day”
Well, it is Monday. I hope your day gets better.
I WAS JUST THERE THIS WEEK AND SO FREAKED OUT BY THE PLACE THAT I CAM HOME AND GOOGLED IT! I took my 4 young sons to the Discovery Science Center late in the afternoon but it closed at 5:00 so I asked if there was a playground nearby where I could take them to run around and wait out rush hour traffic. They said just across the street is a big park and playground. It looked so great at first. It looked like a camp ground setting with a woods-y vibe. And better was that you could see the rock paths the water would take down to the river… facinating for boys and looked so fun for them to explore. But I got a funny feeling within the first 5 minutes there with my little guys the oldest is only 7). There WERE stray men lurkers every where. And there were NO OTHER families nor a single other woman or child in that park. My boys kept running down the hill to get near to the river area. I started getting really agitated at them. They were all into every piece of dirt, rock, pile of leaves, wouldn’t keep their shoes on… We live at the beach and that’s how they are here and fine. But I felt so keenly aware that this was not a place to dig around in any blind piles of foliage (and with no prior knowledge of this article until I came home and googled the place). I was thinking maybe it was kind of a homeless/drug score place. Never thought about gay dudes sexing it up in the bathroom. I couldn’t care less who people have sex with by the way but it does DEFINITELY take the sweet playground-park-in-nature feeling and make it feel sketchy.
I felt watched there – I started making the children stay closer, then closer to me and finally I annoyed them all so much and myself for feeling so uneasy and panicky for no real reason I could put my finger on. When my 4 year old said he had to go to the bathroom I said you need to hold it or poop in the baby’s diaper because I could see that dudes were coming out of the bathroom. I mean really – how often does a grown man need to use a public bathroom at a playground park and he’s not with kids. Well, now I know.
Why can’t the Santa Ana city council stop this? Why don’t the pass the law the other cities are passing in O.C. that bans sex offenders from Santa Ana parks? Art, can’t you help out?
Believe me, I have asked the Council to do so. I am told that they are working on it. My guess is that they were focusing on the outsourcing of the Fire Department and the other resolutions to the budget crisis. I expect this to get done at some point in the next few months.
I am so sorry you had such an awful experience. My wife and I also saw the same thing, back when I first started writing about this. I do expect our City Council to eventually move to ban sex offenders from all of our parks, the sooner the better.