On the Sunday of Pride Day celebrations in San Francisco, a shrill but peaceful parade followed by a Civic Center event with half a dozen performance stages ended with a bitter note as fights erupted in at least one area and an apparently harmful chemical was fired. the large crowd near the main stage.
Problems began around 5:25 p.m., when San Francisco police reported heavy disputes near portable restrooms that had been set up for event attendees, according to Officer Kathryn Winters, department spokesman. They arrived to find “a large number of individuals involved in a physical fight,” Winters said in an email and broke the disturbance.
But a few minutes later, on the main stage of Kaiser Permanente in front of City Hall, “an unknown woman dispersed a caustic chemical, possibly ‘bear spray’ into the crowd,” Winters wrote.
This incident caused SF Pride to close all stages of the event about 20 minutes before the scheduled conclusion of the festivities at 6 p.m. Pride later issued a statement on social media describing the incident as “a person spraying a mace on the crowd. Although no one was injured, we know it was not a pleasant experience. We decided to reduce the action for security reasons “.
As people clarified earlier than expected, Winters said “a lot of fights have been reported to the police between 5:30 and 6 p.m.” Apparently, however, none seemed to scale the previous interruption.
Also around 5:30 a.m., when the big fight broke out near Polk and Hayes streets, there were reports of a shooting near Seventh and Market streets, outside the Pride event. near UN Plaza. The bars briefly closed their doors to prevent people from running to the sidewalks and police were called to the scene.
Winters issued a statement an hour or so later that “officers were unable to locate any victims / witnesses” and that “reports of a shooting do not appear to have merit.”
According to police, officers broke up the fight near Polk and Hayes, the crowd dispersed and no injuries were reported.
John King is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com