The Fourth of July celebration in Newport Beach turned violent, leading to more than 400 arrests by local law enforcement.
Police were dispatched to Newport Peninsula around 7:00 a.m. Saturday following reports that crowds of people were setting off fireworks and fighting, according to City News Service.
Digital images obtained by The Times showed large aerial fireworks being lit nearby, while another video showed fireworks being thrown into a crowd by an unknown person. In another clip obtained by the Times, one person wearing a Spider-Man mask was seen climbing a robot before leading the crowd in chants of: “USA, USA, USA.”
Emily Alcala, 18, who moved from Las Vegas to Newport to live with family nearby, described the incident as horrific.
“It is absolutely not safe to explode fireworks in the crowd,” said Alcala. “There was an explosion on your left, [then] you run to your right and fireworks explode [there]. It was very chaotic. There was no way you could go that was safe at all.”
Some videos uploaded on social media show people in charge broken road symptoms and looting in the nearby area Pavilions is a restaurant on West Balboa Boulevard.
Mia Meyers, 19, was closing up shop at Sancho’s Tacos, near Pavilions, around 5:00 p.m. when she saw crowds of people banging on the windows of the business.
“There was chaos with little kids drinking and yelling at the staff, including me,” said Meyers.
On Sunday, local volunteers went to the beach to help clean up the debris from the previous day.
“I only saw this one video [Pavilions] parking lot. Thankfully, all the locals here helped to collect,” said Meyers. “All the people who live here love to keep Newport. [Beach] a clean and beautiful place, so they all work together to help pick it up. When I came here this morning to work, I didn’t see anything.”
The silent city “Not in Newport” campaign on social media this summer to remind visitors that officials will not tolerate public drunkenness, illegal fireworks and other disorderly behavior. Fines for such violations in West Newport Beach and the Peninsula – called safety improvement areas – will be tripled until July 6.
“We always have a lot of visitors to town on the 4th of July. It’s been that way for years, and there’s always some kind of big youth movement that ebbs and flows,” said Newport Beach Mayor Lauren Kleiman. “In the last few years we have seen people coming up, especially children from outside. [It’s] not unusual, but I think social media has really changed things.”
The coastal city has also imposed a one-strike cancellation policy for temporary resident permit holders whose tenants violate public safety laws during the security upgrade. Kleiman said many older people rent temporary housing to young people but no longer accompany them.
“I know there’s a lot of talk about it on social media, but it was actually organized once [police] it contained space. The rest of the youth who did not follow the police’s instructions have also been arrested,” said Kleiman, who confirmed that more than 400 people were arrested in the past 36 hours.
Most of the kids and people from outside of Newport Beach were at the meeting.
One police officer received non-life threatening injuries when he was pelted with mortar.
“We are still considering everything. Come Monday morning, we will all sit down and talk about what we can do better next year,” said Kleiman.
Newport Beach Police Assn. took to social media to applaud the efforts of the authorities, which, according to its statement, are more than 500 to one.
“A large group of terrorists attacked Newport Beach, inspired by the alleged ‘TikTok Takeover,'” read a post on Instagram, which Joe DeJulio, the president of the police association, later said. “These people come to our city with the intention of harming, harming, and destroying, bringing torture, disorder and chaos.”
The Times contacted the Newport Beach Police Department for more information, but they did not immediately respond.
Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.
