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 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.
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.
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.
It is such a shame about Santiago park, it is too beautiful to be that trashed. Shame on u people posting that we are crazy for standing up and uniting as a community to not only make people aware of what goes on here, but to get it cleaned up! I love this park.... Would I ever go here alone? No. Would I ever bring kids here? No would I ever go past sun down. Nope. Thank u guys for making people aware and uniting together to prevent/rid Thr park from this behavior. As for the rest of u, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if it's garbage
i just discovered this website while searching for the park rangers phone number. I was born and raised in Santa Ana, and we used to hold our family reunions at Santiago Park. I haven't been there in years but drive by it every so often. Its shocking and disgusting to know that men go to this park, or any park or public place for that matter, to cruise and hook up for sex. I'm aware of other parks in Orange County where men hook up in the restrooms to have sex. A friend of mine directed me to a gay cruising website that lists them. If these depraved activities are still occurring, I suggest going to the newspaper, although they probably won't touch the story with a ten foot pole since some will make it out to be a Gay rights issue. Most parents haven't even heard of gay cruising so are unaware of the danger their children are in when using the restrooms. I can't believe the other posters on this site who are attacking the messenger of this story. I have a pretty strong feeling that these posters are either the same perverts who are engaging in these activities at Santiago, or maybe another park. The other possibility is that these people have no children so they just don't get it. Parents, need to be alerted to the dangers at this park. Thanks for posting, please continue the fight and please post updates.
What "danger" are you talking about, exactly? You may not think you are a homophobe, but calling all gay men pedophiles is a homophobic canard that should have died in the '50s. The men who go there to cruise do it at night (when kids should be in bed anyhow) and certainly aren't interested in your snot-nosed crotch-dumplings, trust me.
Ask Don Cribb what goes on at night in that park.
One of the worst parks to go to....especially in the glorified floral park area ...scary area for kids don't recommend it.....
It's a known drug park and homeless park
I loved this park :/
I agree with Cruz but that can all change if they get that bike trail finished West of the 5 Freeway in Santiago Creek. Art, how soon can it be built?
I believe the funding is there. What is lacking is the political will.
Even with the new Council? Are they still afraid of the Usual Suspects?
Benavides is allied with them.
So David Benavides is stopping the bike trail from being completed? Why is Sarmiento so weak?