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A riot apparently broke out at the OC Pride Festival event that was held this Saturday, August 1, 2015, in Downtown Santa Ana.  Details are sketchy but I did receive a number of pictures and the video above from an anonymous source who said that the trouble started late and the Santa Ana Police were there in large numbers by 11 p.m.

This disturbance has not been reported in the local media but it does show up on Crimeapping.com, which notes that there was a “Disturbing the Peace” arrest at the 300 block of N. Spurgeon St., in DTSA, at 11:51 p.m. on August 1.

There was also a riot in 1989, when six people were arrested after a fist-swinging brawl broke out among more than 50 militant gays and fundamentalist Christians at Orange County’s first Gay Pride Festival, as reported by the L.A. Times.

Moments before the alleged riot at the 2015 OC Pride in DTSA
Moments before the alleged riot at the 2015 OC Pride in DTSA

A retired SAPD officer told my source that this year’s Pride Festival had a very low attendance.  They used to block off the whole west end of 4th St. for this annual event. This year most of the Pride Festival appears to have taken place at the Yost Theater.

Police at 2015 OC Pride

I am not really sure why the Pride Festival is held in Santa Ana in the first place.  This is most certainly not an event that most of our residents would ever attend.  Who knows how much money the SAPD wasted in responding to the disturbance on Saturday night?

author avatar
Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

By Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

5 thoughts on “The SAPD responded to an alleged riot at the OC Pride Festival on Saturday night”
  1. OC Pride is better attended when it’s on the West side is Downtown. This year’s OC Pride was lame.

  2. The reports are somewhat OVERBLOWN, it was wild with the usual people looking for trouble: I am pretty sure Greg Diamond’s BOTHER IN LAW and his latest Asian “Boi Toy” were the ones drunk and yelling “FAGS RULE, FAGS RULE”. and other incisive comments. Screaming comments like “I GOT a white DADDY” doesn’t help the civil rights of homosexual couples, nobody bothered to tell Diamonds little brother that. I am not even certain it was them, there was SO many SIXTY year old men with YOUNG ethnic boys, it’s hard to tell. So many of them seem attached to DPOC members.

    Don’t forget, just two weeks before Diamonds little brother married another DPOC member, that DPOC official ERASED 100+ photos of his “SEXTATIONS” to the Philippines and Thailand which featured scantily clad young men with AMERICAN MEN late in age. If this had been a GOP member with a Japanese female…..Look out.

    Luckily, there was a Lexus nearby to rush the “BOI” back to Brea, where they could sleep it off in the house that Jeff’s mom bought them!

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