A rowdy yesterday put one man in the hospital…too bad…nice day otherwise.
An excerpt.
Man hospitalized in river brawl with oars
July 4 revelers also turn rowdy at Rancho Cordova fireworks show.
By Jim Wasserman -- Bee Staff Writer Published 12:01 am PDT Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Drunken river rafters clubbed one another with oars Tuesday during a melee among 30 to 40 people at Goethe Park that sent at least one unidentified man to the UC Davis Medical Center with head injuries, authorities said Tuesday.
"It was a combination of alcohol and immature people," said Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District Capt. Jeff Lynch. "People were swinging oars at one another and fighting."
July Fourth also proved rowdy as an evening fireworks show at Rancho Cordova's Hagan Community Park turned unruly. Police officers fired pepper balls and used Taser darts to disperse a crowd before the show was over, Lynch said.
About 20 to 30 young men were acting unruly, Lynch said, and officers were called in along with deputies from Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, other agencies and three ambulances from the Sacramento Fire Department.
The fighting had escalated when a young man started beating up his girlfriend and a crowd of his friends stopped an unarmed security guard and later a police officer from intervening, Lynch said.
Other officers arrived and the crowd of young men started moving toward police, Lynch said. Officers fired pepper-spray guns into the crowd to stop them, he said. "One of them refused to stop, and he was hit by a Taser dart," Lynch said. One of the ambulances dispatched to the fight took the man hit by the Taser to Mercy San Juan Medical Center. He was in stable condition. Lynch said.
Though there were no arrests on the American River, Sacramento County sheriff's deputies and park rangers contended again with drunken revelers on a tiny island north of Hagan Park.
