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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Buy moutain bikes....and also make our streets safe that's more important ..lots of kids getting hit these days....speed kills so let's enforce it
Get the people off the streets when possible and on to Bike trails. You can make streets safe too but get this trail completed.
Moved intot the neighborhood a few months ago and thought it would be great to have a park to walk and run through. Only problem is you have to side step the condoms and lube you find on the trails daily. The loitering is just creepy. This shouldn't be a gay rights issues. If your lurking in the bushes getting head or beating some dude off your in the wrong. Do that in the privacy of your own home but not around kids and people trying to enjoy themselves. Just imagine walking down a trail and homeboy steps out of the bushes with his hands in his pants. Daily occurance around here. Maybe if people started using the park more and they added more lights it would be better. The biggest problem area is at the parking lot and at the bridge. But mostly by the parking and around the kids play area!!!
Most of the men that frequent this park are Hispanic and married to women. They often have little understanding of their sexual orientation and why they feel so compelled to be with men. There is little, if any, support for their sexual confusion in their culture or religion. And so the park becomes a place that is the outlet for that. Some well-off white men come here in the hopes of exploiting their desperation, but for the most part, people who are not socially, economically, and culturally marginalized are meeting up on the internet for gay sex, not hanging out in parks. The majority of the men in this park are at the bottom of the social hierarchy: they are poor, they are of color, they are uneducated, and they are self-loathing.
It's not really frightening--it's more a sad commentary on our society and the lack of education many people get regarding sexuality. Perhaps the situation would improve if the city put the money it invests in sting operations into programs at the local gay and lesbian center that would be designed to reach out to the surrounding Hispanic community?
There is a HUGE double standard going on, by the way. I jog through this park every day to get my exercise. Almost every time, I see a man and woman embraced, kissing, cuddling next to each other, etc. And I've only ever seen the "gay" men standing alone. It's interesting that heterosexuals can be much more open about their physical intimacy in the park, but even the suggestion that these pathetic and desperate gay or bi guys might be hooking up unseen in the bushes is considered threatening.
If these men want to make out with other men in public they should go to the Velvet Lounge. Having sex in our parks is unacceptable.
That's a very flip response to my post. Again, people who are poor, self-loathing, confused, closeted, and desperate are unlikely to show their faces in a local gay bar. If they felt it was safe to do that, this problem would hardly exist in the first place.
It's not about excusing the behavior. Of course it isn't appropriate to have sex in a public park--and going to a gay bar doesn't provide a place for these men to have sex, by the way, so is hardly a solution. The point is that the solution to the problem is not simplistic; it requires major shifts in cultural attitudes along a multitude of spectrums.
Amongst other things, I volunteer with the homeless population in Orange County and hear neighbors voice legitimate concerns about having homeless people encamped in their areas. However, the solution that is generally offered is to simply "get them out of here." I do understand their frustration, just as I understand the concerns about sex in the park. But simply removing people isn't that easy. How many resources do we drain doing it? And where will they go? They will continue to exist as homeless people even if they are removed from location and put in another. There must be long term systematic solutions put in place.
The same applies for people who find parks their only viable alternative for meeting others for intimacy. A major crackdown on the park only sends them scurrying elsewhere--to the restrooms at the mall across the street, to the alley behind the stores in downtown Santa Ana, or to the back yard of an abandoned foreclosed house. It's not enough just to demand that people behaving inappropriately leave an area. We have to provide solutions for why they are engaging in that behavior in that place in the first place.
Flip responses and anger will only get you so far in making the world a better place. Compassion and practical solutions that address systemic flaws go much, much further.
It’s not jist m2m it’s straights too
Why doesn't Jake open up his home/back yard for these encounters? Sounds like the most compassionate, practical solution.
Why the deliberate effort to shoot down everything I'm saying? Is there no value in it whatsoever? If so, why don't you tell me how, in specific terms, I'm fundamentally and completely wrong so I can change the way I think? I am open to learning from you. It would be great if you were open to learning from me, though it's not a prerequisite for us having a civil, open-minded discussion.
And, again, for the record, I have repeatedly said this behavior is inappropriate. My concern is what to do about it.
"My concern is what to do about it"....... Hmmmmmm
You have to have designated area for such activity, aka Red Light District.
Prohibitions do not work!
Yesterday, while waiting for my mom at her doctor's appointment, I wanted to take my 3 year-old son outdoors to play and I stumbled across this park off of Memory Lane by the lawn bowling section. I saw a few joggers and bikers, but nobody really stopping to hang out and explore. I did see, as posted above, some men loitering. One was reading, but others were just hanging out. There is certainly nothing wrong with seeking solitude in nature, but these guys were leaning against random trees and one guy was even leaning against some old monkey bars. It made me feel nervous and I was hesitant to walk too far with my son as I didn't have my bearings. I just had a general uneasiness and I was becoming agitated when my son got too far away from me so we left. The park itself was beautiful and i could tell it had some historical significance so I figured I'd go home and google the park to see what I found. The park is symbolic for the city itself. Some nice parts as well as relics of yesteryear, but if you venture inside, it's pretty ugly and scary. Having worked in Santa Ana for 5 years, it really seems that the city is becoming a lost cause. :(
It is a sad state of affairs. The police roust these men at night but they always return...
Sounds like everyone was getting the same creepy feeling when they entered this park. I saw a bunch of grown men and a couple of teenage boys hanging around the jungle gym. They all seemed very lost. Also some clotes and bags in random spots. FIRST AND LAST time I will go to this park.
Alright, had to put in my 2 cents. Yes, the graffiti/shopping cart thing is a bit much, as it is a city. Graffiti happens. Shopping carts left in random places happen. Trash happens, and creepers happen. BUT, I, like others who have previously commented felt SO creeped out by this place that I had to google it. My friend and I decided to take a walk there yesterday. The first thing we noticed was the abundance of men sitting in their parked cars in the "parking" area. Kinda strange. Like...LOTS of them. Almost every car there was occupied by a man, with his windows down, just watching. So we get out, start walking, and notice there WERE a lot of men, just kind of "hanging out" loitering if you will. Kinda weird. THEN, as we were walking along a trail above the parking lot, a woman yells to us "Excuse me, ladies! Be careful, because theres a man over there, hiding in the bushes! Just over there!" *Points* And a small boy, maybe 12, was near her, and beamed in with how the man tried to lure him over to him. UMM, creepy. We didnt see any gloves, condoms, condom wrappers or anything else "suspicious" while on our walk, like previous posters have. But needless to say, we avoided the area where the supposed man in the bushes was lurking...we actually left the park, took the streets all the way around it, and came back into the park to get to our car. Overall, it was just a really "off" kind of experience. Like, both me and my friend just felt weary about being there shortly after arriving. Needless to say, it wont be my first choice the next time I decide to stroll in the park.
It is such a shame that the city has allowed these men to take over our park.
So you went back to the park at night to do what?????????????
Walk my dog.
I agree. What is this creep doing at night in the park taking guys Pictures. Is he a serial killer?, Stalker? or some other deviated create. Who in the world goes to the Park and take a pictures of trash and people hanging out? Specially man. Is in it what the park is all about it? To hang out? Does he has a proof that "gay" man meeting to have sex ? or has he took picture of a two man having sex? I bet he does not. If anyone should get a life is the guy with the Blackberry (btw- Blackberry is outdated cell phone get a new one) that he should get life. Or change park. He is not the Law Peace Officer. Taking someones pictures in the park it is just creepy maybe he is a stalker? Ask yourself. Why would I take a guys pictures at the park? Peace....
I used to go to this park when I was a teenager in the 70s because the local YMCA New Horizons program had a day camp there. We also did a nature walk at night and I loved this place so much back then. I havent been there in a very very long time but am sad to hear about all of the issues going on :(
I miss my old santa ana!!
Man you can still remember? You know what YMCA Stands for? So you were legally joining the gay man association under the pretext of YMCA, ha ha ha...
Anyone who is going to that park and is complaining is a Voyageur period. No exceptions. Closet case. Peace Out.
Um I was a teenage GIRL at the time and it was basically an athletic club then. They had gym classes and such. So as a FEMALE i had nothing to do with joining a gay club. The only thing it ever stood for was Young Mens Christian Association, not the young mens gay association. Perhaps english is not your first language; however I'm pretty sure you can read.
I was a teenage girl so your point makes no sense. I haven't been to that park in at least 38 years so I was obviously not complaining about it; i was merely stating that i used to go there all the time and that it is sad what it has become. obviously english is your second language; however perhaps you should read more closely before you comment. And it's "voyeur",
The men leaning against trees sre undercover pigs,restroom masterbaters r pigs trying to entrap gay men. Courts have ruled its illegal to do selective gay stings. Sounds like u. Guys have sex hangups .
Im aware of the park and its past but I never seen people having sex or meeting up with males I use to live off santiago and 17th st one thing I did experience at Santiago Park late 12 am 2001 . I wont ever go back at night. I love santa ana. O.C. I know it was very late came down with 3 other friends to have a quick smoke break outside the truck in parking area for 10 min then when we heard a woman crying out for help in the bottom of the creek and voice.was getting louder and and even closer it made me have chills and so did the others because there was no one else out there but us we all heard it in the air saying help me and we ran to the truck with one door open while driving out the parks parking lot hanging half way in the truck scared because what we heard something that wasn't normal ..i didnt know about her . Meaning an incident from the late 80's.shes still unknown till this day and I looked her up and Google it was too real of an experience ill never forget but the park is peace full during the days when I would go. the story of the woman back in march 4 1988 a young woman in her 20's was murdered and decapitated ..I was wondering if anyone that lives near or have been there late night and has ever.heard anything about this..so dont go to parks at night people..learn from me :-) thanks for the post art..
Wow. I never heard about that one but a homeless fellow killed another homeless man at night a few years ago.
I just came upon that story today, that's so scary poor girl they never found who did that to her . I have never been to Santiago park and never will. I'll stick to my back yard .