Raiders’ Hometown Braces for Trouble

Even though the hometown Raiders will be playing in the Super Bowl today in San Diego, a special force of 370 law enforcement officers will be patrolling here in case trouble erupts after the game.

With good reason: After the Raider conference championship win last Sunday, hundreds of heady fans descended on three of the city’s economically depressed areas. Drunken revelers broke windows, vandalized businesses, set fire to a car and an auto shop, and did “doughnuts” -- sped cars in tight circles on the pavement, officials said.

Twenty people were arrested for public consumption of alcohol or vandalism, Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw said. Few resisted arrest, though several celebrants tossed empty bottles at police clad in riot gear, and one bottle struck an officer in the head, Haw said.

Last Sunday, 100 police in addition to the 45 normally on duty were on patrol, Haw said. Today, an extra force of 250 police, 90 sheriff’s deputies and 30 California Highway Patrol officers will monitor the sites of last Sunday’s flare-ups. And Jack London Square, on the waterfront, will be closed to motor traffic.

“We’ve learned from last week’s events, and we believe we’ve developed a secure plan for residents and property,” Haw said at a news conference Friday. “It is our goal Sunday to allow people to celebrate safely and without fear. For those who want to use the opportunity to distract others or engage in criminal activity, we will stop you and we will arrest you.”

Shopkeepers complained Friday that police had waited too long to squelch last Sunday’s melee. They and residents worry that today, whether in victory or defeat, Raider fans will once again be out for plunder at the shops and businesses along International Boulevard at 80th and 39th avenues, and at 18th Street and San Pablo.

“We’re wondering when they are going to tell us what is going on,” Michael Donson, a car repair shop owner, said Friday. “It’s obvious we didn’t receive adequate protection from the police and the city last time,” he said, standing outside a neighbor’s shop where three windows had been broken. Around the corner, another friend’s auto shop is closed after being set on fire. Piles of debris lie under blue tarps at its front.

Farther down the road, a man removed white house paint with which vandals had coated store windows. Inside Regina’s Lace and Crafts, a clerk said that Raider fans had broken another window, then looted the store. She said they had stolen a ceramic figurine of a nude woman hoisting a plate of plastic fruit, five flower arrangements worth about $600, some blank photo albums and a collection of tiny lace pillows used for weddings and quinceaneras, the coming-of-age ceremonies for Latina 15-year-olds.

Shopkeepers and residents said that last Sunday the crowd arrived immediately after the game, but that police did not disperse it until after 11 p.m. Police said that deploying units today at about 3:15 p.m., as Super Bowl XXXVII kicks off, will help.