Magic Mountain, City Examine What Went Wrong

While Magic Mountain representatives met with sheriff’s officials Monday to review Saturday’s twin outbreaks of violence, Santa Clarita officials began sorting out what for them was a weekend of communication breakdowns and rampant rumors.

During the melees at the theme park, officials in neighboring Santa Clarita had difficulty getting in touch with each other and with law enforcement agencies, and there was no central source of information, city officials said.

The city’s bus lines shut down during the melee, City Manager George Caravalho said, but he did not know who made the decision to close the service.

“Rumor control was a real big problem on Saturday,” Caravalho said.

City Councilwoman Jill Klajic, whose 13-year-old daughter was at Magic Mountain at the time, agreed.

“We have a real problem with a lack of communication,” she said. “We couldn’t get accurate information quickly.”

Hundreds of rowdy youths rampaged through the park and nearby businesses Saturday in two waves of violence, first in the afternoon and again at night, leading to dozens of minor injuries and three arrests.

The afternoon incident was touched off when thousands of people, out of school for spring break and drawn by heavy promotion of two popular rap groups, were turned away when the park reached capacity early in the afternoon. Later, trouble broke out inside the park about the time the concert by the groups TLC and Paperboy ended.

Klajic said that during the melee she could not get through constantly busy telephone lines at the sheriff’s station in Santa Clarita and was unable to contact Caravalho.

Caravalho said Santa Clarita’s emergency operating center was not activated because Saturday’s incidents involved mostly law enforcement, not other city services.

Park president Del Holland and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department representatives intend to review the incidents and do some planning for the future, Capt. Jerry Conklin said.

Among the issues discussed, Conklin said, was the possibility of having Magic Mountain officials inform the Sheriff’s Department when they are doing something that might cause problems, such as turning away visitors en masse.

“We would just like to be a part of that process,” said Conklin, who said the department was not notified that the park had reached capacity and would shut its gates.

Conklin said they also discussed being notified of what entertainers were performing at the park.

But Conklin said it was unlikely that law enforcement officials would have behaved differently had they known earlier about the problems Saturday.

Holland was not available for comment, and park representatives would not comment on the specifics of the meeting with law enforcement.

Councilwoman Klajic blamed Magic Mountain for allowing too many people into the park.

“The management of Magic Mountain should have foreseen that this was going to be a bad weekend to have a large group of people congregating anywhere,” Klajic said. “They had better look very, very closely at their ability to manage extra large crowds.”

Law enforcement agencies estimated attendance at the park to be as high as 40,000, but park representatives declined to say exactly how many people were there Saturday.

Park officials maintained that the park had done nothing wrong and blamed park-goers who were upset that they could not attend the concerts.

Magic Mountain officials characterized the violent outbursts as “concert problems.”

In the future, rap groups “or any other entertainers that we believe might provoke the same reaction” will be banned from the park, said Magic Mountain spokeswoman Bonnie Rabjohn.