Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Vandals damaged the windows at Haight-Ashbury Music Center in downtown Sunnyvale during an Aug. 12 riot. Officers from several local law enforcement agencies were called in during the incident.
Post-concert party added to downtown vandalism
Police call riot an isolated incident
By Daniel Hinden
Sunnyvale police are calling an Aug. 12 riot that left a trail of thievery, broken windows and angry store owners in downtown Sunnyvale an isolated incident.
According to Capt. Chuck Eaneff, Sunnyvale Public Safety Department spokesman, fliers advertising a party at the Palace, a Murphy Avenue nightclub, lured many of the more than 1,000 people involved in the incident downtown. The fliers were handed out in large quantities during a music concert at Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheater, Eaneff said.
Police originally had responded to Macy's department store in the Town Center Mall after they received a call at 8:20 p.m.
"Between 50 and 60 youths were running rampant inside the store. They were riding through the store on scooters and stealing things," Eaneff said.
By the time police arrived, however, Eaneff said the vandals had left the scene. Neither police nor Macy's officials could provide an accurate estimate of the losses and damage.
According to Eaneff, later that night when the KMEL All-Star Summer Jam-- featuring hip-hop stars Lil' Kim, Da Brat, and Jay-Z--ended, droves of concert-goers migrated from Mountain View to downtown Sunnyvale with high expectations of the goings on at the Palace.
"The Palace had been booked under false pretenses. The people who rented it out weren't who they said they were. They advertised to way too many people," says Eaneff. "The club is big but not that big."
Representatives of the Palace say that they had rented the venue out to a private individual who said that his fraternity wanted to have a private party. He said that they were having an event earlier that afternoon and wanted to continue with nighttime activities at the Palace. He estimated that 500 people would attend, but about twice that number showed up. The Palace's capacity is 700 people.
The fliers ended up attracting too many people and as a result, not all of the young people could get in. As the angry crowd of deterred people began to grow in the hours following the concert, Eaneff said, police decided that the unruly crowd needed to be dispersed.
Just after 10 p.m., police asked the crowd to evacuate the area.
Eaneff says that the orders didn't sit well with the crowd and, "they began throwing rocks and bottles at officers. At this point the officers requested mutual aid from the surrounding areas."
As more police arrived, the crowd spread out over the city. According to Eaneff, one unidentified rioter tried to wrestle a baton from the grasp of an officer. The officer managed to pin the youth to the ground but not before the officer suffered an injury to his knee. The suspect was arrested and booked into Santa Clara County jail.
A few blocks away, another unidentified juvenile was shot in the upper arm near the Washington Mutual at Washington and Mathilda Avenues, Eaneff said. The victim was treated at the Stanford Medical Center, but police have not identified a suspect yet.
Windows were broken throughout downtown Sunnyvale at such stores as McMullen Advertising, The Amma Station, Nail Expert, and Haight-Ashbury Music Center. Representatives of Haight-Ashbury Music Center report that the broken glass from the windows damaged several guitars, but no looters actually entered the store or took anything. None of the other stores reported any stolen items, police said.
That same night, Eaneff said many "wandering disturbances," occurred throughout Sunnyvale. Eaneff said police received reports of youths entering the Albertson's grocery at Maude and Mathilda Avenues where suspects supposedly stole random objects such as batteries. A Shell station on Mathilda Ave. also experienced some problems.
The disturbances temporarily wound down, but at 1 a.m., when the Palace closed and its 500 attendees filtered onto the streets, action started up again.
According to Eaneff, it eventually took 110 police officers from the San Jose, Santa Clara, Mountain View and Palo Alto police departments, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's office and the California Highway Patrol to get the situation under control.
At final count, three juveniles were arrested.
"Public Safety officers took video footage of the suspects," says Eaneff. "We are following up on that right now."
Sunnyvale Police Chief Ernie Bakin held a meeting with all of the downtown merchants on Tuesday morning to let them know what happened. "We wanted them to hear from us before they heard it from the newspapers," says Eaneff. "The chief expressed how pleased he was with the responding officers. There was no excessive force or even allegations of excessive force. It's hard to have an event like that without those sorts of problems."
Eaneff says that police are not holding the Palace accountable for anything that happened. "The Palace was very cooperative," he says. "They were the victim. They shut their doors to new visitors once there was a problem, and they stopped serving alcohol. Once they stopped serving alcohol, people came across the bar and stole bottles."
Eaneff says that investigations into the incident will continue.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
