7-9 Shot In Castro's Hallowe'en - 2006

Good thing, I guess, that I didn't take Jonah to to this annual event:

Violence marred the annual Halloween celebration in San Francisco's Castro district Tuesday when seven people were shot in the 2200 block of Market Street just as the event was drawing to an end, police said.
The shooting occurred near Sullivan's Funeral Chapel about a block away from the main stage of the party that drew thousands of revelers, police said.
Police heard the shots and ran toward 2255 Market to find two women and five men on the ground, two with life-threatening injuries. One suffered a gunshot to the head. The victims were transported to San Francisco General Hospital. The other five suffered nonlife-threatening injuries. Police also said they received reports of at least one stabbing and one report of a possible sexual assault.
The gunfire erupted at 10:40 p.m., about 10 minutes after the techno music ended and police began making announcements over a loudspeaker that it was time to leave. Fearing violence and unruly crowds, this year city leaders for the first time imposed an 11 p.m. curfew on the event.
"We believe the shooting happened in an area that was cordoned off so someone might have snuck a gun inside," said Sgt. Neville Gittens.
Police detained two people for questioning, who could be witnesses or suspects.
San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the city's gay mecca and surrounding neighborhoods, had said earlier in the day that he and other leaders hoped to phase out the annual gathering, which drew nearly 300,000 people last year -- too big, he said, for the merchants and residents to bear.
Before the violence broke, people were enjoying the festivities, standing shoulder to shoulder in a big throng that included mermaids, monsters and many men sans their shirts at Market and Castro streets.
"This is tragic," Dufty said. "I'm disappointed. All along we've been concerned about an increase in the climate of violence, especially among juveniles." He said his information was that all the victims were young.
Dufty had said the objective of Castro leaders was to encourage people to visit the district, but to end their nights at bars or clubs in their hometowns or in other San Francisco neighborhoods. By his own estimation, only 10 percent of those at the Halloween party are from the neighborhood.
"There's not a lot of support for this annual even in the community," Dufty said. "And now this really begs the question, who are we doing this for?"
This year the police presence in the Castro was increased by 25 percent, the performance stages were reduced from three to one, and officials announced an increased effort to cite public drunks and illegal parkers.
Seven people had been arrested for public drunkenness -- and that had been the only trouble up until the shootings. Police successfully used an air raid siren to disperse the crowd, and the city's Department of Public Works followed with street sweepers.
"I just think this is a transitional year for Halloween in the Castro," Dufty said Tuesday evening before the violence and after taking his daughter in a pumpkin costume to 24th Street in Noe Valley for the city's kid version of Castro Street.
The annual event has had violence in the past -- but nothing as serious as the shootings of seven people.
Some residents avoided the night altogether and came out in costume on "secret" Saturday night instead.
"I've come the last few years and the crowds are overwhelming," said Jon Ivan Weaver, who affixed crows and fake blood to his clothes and showed up both Saturday and Tuesday dressed as Tippi Hedren in the movie "The Birds." "Something has to be done."
The gathering, which began in the 1960s, took a negative turn in 2002 when four people were stabbed, 30 people were arrested and police were pelted with bottles. Ever since, city officials have been trying to make it safer, adding security gates and screening for dangerous items, a ban on public alcohol consumption and a lane reserved for emergency vehicles.
The rumor in Karen Santos' Butte County hometown of Oroville was that this was the last year for the Castro Halloween party. She hadn't attended in more than a decade, after she moved away from the neighborhood, but she rallied her boyfriend and showed up at 5:30 p.m. dressed as the late "queen of Tejano music," singer Selena.
"I'm staying until the party is over," said Santos, 40. "If the party is still going after 11, I'm sticking around."
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who endorses the quieter, gentler Halloween plan, walked the street with his aides and police escorts around 6 p.m., moving briskly through the crowd.
If Angel Pasillas of San Leandro, dressed as Al Pacino's Scarface, could have gotten some face time with Newsom, he would have told him that watering down Halloween is like taking the Mardi Gras out of New Orleans. Usually, Pasillas drives his car to the Castro on Halloween and stays out until 4 a.m. This time, he took BART, and planned to leave once the crowds thin out.
"We should be happy to hold events like this," he said. "I don't appreciate the changes."
Halloween in the Castro has become a central issue in Dufty's Nov. 7 re-election campaign. His main challenger, Alix Rosenthal, has said Dufty is slowly draining the fun out of the neighborhood.
She said the shootings were a result of poor planning on the part of the city.
"This event was planned way too late in the game," she said. "The police have done a great job, but they can't do it alone. The city needed to have dedicated more resources. It's really sad what happened tonight."
She added that it's silly and unrealistic to assume a spontaneous gathering can be shut down by city officials at their desired hour.
Paul Ellis, 49, isn't so sure. As a 22-year resident of the Castro and a manager at Cliff's Variety store, he understands the power of tradition but feels the strain of the Halloween invasion.
"I don't want to lose this thing that so many people enjoy so much," said Ellis, who dressed in colorful silks as an Arabian sultan. "But this is a residential neighborhood. It's not meant to hold this many people."
E-mail the writers at mmay@sfchronicle.com,

11-01) 15:35 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- As police today pieced together what led to a shooting that injured nine people at the Castro Halloween celebration, city officials were talking about whether the party should be over for good.
"When you have a historic event, you can't just stop them, because people will still show up," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said today.
Still, he said that is an option city officials are considering.
As Newsom, talking to reporters, laid out options -- collecting an entry fee, setting an age requirement, using metal detectors -- he echoed the sentiments of many San Franciscans
"Thank God no one was killed," he said. "That probably would have ended the event immediately, and that does not mean we will not consider shutting this even down in the future."
Police say that the Tuesday night shooting was sparked by a bottle being thrown at someone.
They questioned one person in connection with the 10:40 p.m. incident, but that person has since been released. No arrests have been made.
The altercation involved two groups of young people, ages 15 to 25, officials said. At least one of the groups was from San Francisco, police said.
After someone threw a bottle, hitting someone in the other group, a person in the second group opened fire, shooting as many as nine times, police said.
San Francisco police believe at least one gang was involved in the shooting, which is being investigated by the department's gang task force.
Nine people were shot, but police said only two were taken by ambulance to San Francisco General Hospital: a woman whose head was grazed by a bullet and a second victim who was hit in the knee.
Several others were treated at the scene, including a woman who was not shot but injured when she was trampled by the crowd.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty, whose district includes the Castro neighborhood, said two additional shooting victims took themselves to Kaiser Hospital in South San Francisco and another brought himself to General Hospital for treatment.
He described the victims, including the one who was trampled, as eight men and two women, all in their teens or early 20s. All are expected to recover, he said.
City officials and residents today were talking about how to handle the raucous event next year.
Said Dufty: "Everything is on the table right now.
"The sad part of this is that the city really stepped it up and rose to the occasion and did everything we could do make it safe," he said.
Dufty and Newsom are meeting this afternoon to discuss the matter, and the mayor said he also has been speaking with Police Chief Heather Fong.
The gunfire erupted about 10 minutes after the techno music had ended and police had begun making announcements over a loudspeaker that it was time to leave the party, which this year was given an 11 p.m. curfew.
The gathering, which has been going on for decades, attracted the city's attention in 2002, when four people were stabbed. Since then, alcohol has been banned and there has been talk of canceling the party altogether.
This year, officials reined in the event even further, increasing police presence by 25 percent, setting an 11 p.m. curfew and limiting entertainment from three stages to one.
More than 500 police officers and 100 sheriff's deputies staffed the entry gates with instructions to search people's bags for alcohol and weapons before allowing them into the cordoned-off blocks. But today, many attendees said the searches were intermittent at best.
"Somehow, someone slipped in with a weapon," Newsom said. "The question is what we could have done differently. We're going to analyze that."
Dufty said this morning that police and city departments involved in the event did "an incredible job.
"Can you imagine if this was an event we weren't curtailing, what violence could have been if people were still out at midnight or 1 a.m.?" he said. "People who stopped me on the streets this morning said, 'This is what I have been fearful for.' ... It was a very young crowd ... with some menacing elements."
Castro residents had mixed reactions about the event this morning: Several said it should be canceled, while others said it didn't appear the police had done a good enough job checking attendees for weapons.
Neighborhood resident Stephen Chien said he exited the Castro Muni Station at 8:30 p.m. on his way home from work and saw "absolutely no weapons check." Nob Hill resident Monica Green said she entered the area around 9 p.m. at 18th and Castro streets and also did not see police checking anyone.
"I was standing in line, in the crush to get through the barricades, and a young guy was standing next to me with his girlfriend and a couple of friends," she said. "He pulled out a (box cutter) and I thought, 'Oh my God.' He asked his girlfriend to hide it, and she stuck it down her shirt."
Green said she told a policeman about the knife and he "simply shrugged," then asked a fellow officer to search Green's bag.
Alix Rosenthal, an Oakland attorney who is looking to unseat Dufty in next week's election, today used the shooting as an opportunity to criticize her opponent.
In a press release, she said she planned to call for a public hearing "regarding mismanagement of (the) Halloween event and the resulting violence."
Rosenthal said Dufty "botched" his handling of the event and criticized the city's plan to shut down the party early. She accused Dufty of planning the event single-handedly and said she never supported the effort to "eradicate" it.
"This plan was a recipe for disaster," she said.
Earlier, Dufty said he had worked with police, fire and other city departments to plan the event, and indicated he expected Rosenthal to criticize him.
"I have stood up and taken responsibility for this event for four years," he said.
E-mail the writers at mlagos@sfchronicle.com,