In the 1980s, comedian Bobcat Goldthwait observed that, following your team's victory in a championship game, you "can legally do anything you want."
Now, in San Francisco, it's almost literally the truth. Regarding last night's wild, fire-lighting, window-breaking revelry following the San Francisco Giants' World Series title, a police source told SF Weekly "Apparently the word of the day from our brass is 'avoid.' As in avoid doing anything police-y to people near the celebration."
That same source reported "Multiple citywide emergency police backup calls for cops getting mobbed.
All cops ordered in riot helmets and big batons. Crazy fights with
people and police."
Our calls to the police for arrest totals and to General Hospital for an injury report have not yet been returned.*
Thousands of black-and-orange-clad people flooded the city's major arteries. Your humble narrator was on a bus in which several windows were shattered when happy fans thumped too damn hard on the windows. Swaths of the city last night appeared as if they''d been mistreated by a retreating army.
Adding an element of high-tech foolishness that didn't exist in the '80s when Goldthwait was reacting to raucous San Francisco crowds celebrating 49ers Super Bowl wins, "revelers" literally "checked in" to riots on foursquare. That'll make for a great alibi, incidentally. You can't have been smashing a bus on 24th and Mission. You were too busy lighting a mattress on fire at Third and King.
*Update, 9:59 a.m.: General Hospital spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said it was not an out-of-the ordinary night at the ER. The only Giants-related injuries of note were two pedestrians hit by cars during celebrations. One was not admitted but another was -- and remains in critical condition.
"A few people were drunk, or cut themselves with bottles, or fell, but they were all treated and released," Kagan said.
Update, 11:30 a.m. Police spokeswoman Lieutenant Lyn Tomioka said at least six people were arrested last night. One police officer was injured and required stitches. "A lot of cops took bottles, but only he needed stitches," she said.
