I want to die!!!!!
My sister station held this stepshow and it was pretty big, now while the incident happened after the show and not during, you KNOW who they are blaming it on! Too many brothers and sistahs up in the damn park!
And why are we "a hip hop show?" We don't rap!
QTE
Great America park reopens with no signs of teen brawls
VIOLENCE BROKE OUT AFTER HIP-HOP SHOW
By Jessie Seyfer
Mercury News
Paramount's Great America amusement park in Santa Clara opened Sunday without a trace of evidence that just a day earlier police in riot gear forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate the park after fighting broke out following a hip-hop dance contest.
Cleanup crews had the usual Saturday night debris to pick up early Sunday, but park officials reported no damage as a result of the melee.
``There was nothing more than we would have after any busy day at the park,'' Great America spokesman Derek Hanna said. ``It's unfortunate that the behavior of a few individuals disrupted the enjoyment of our other guests.''
During a tense three hours Saturday night, police, armed with pepper spray, arrested ``a handful'' of people and some park visitors received minor injuries, Hanna said. Park officials and Santa Clara police declined to provide further details about the arrests or the extent of the injuries.
The trouble began at 6:30 p.m., when several brawls broke out near the Top Gun ride, witnesses said. Police and security guards began to evacuate people at about 7 p.m., one hour before the park's normal closing time.
San Francisco resident Victoria Martinez, 15, was standing near the Top Gun ride when the fighting began. During the evacuation, she saw one man steal a club from a security guard and hit another man with it. She said she later saw police arrest the man who snatched the club and use pepper spray on about four other parkgoers.
``Once people got outside, it got even worse,'' Martinez said.
In the parking lot, hundreds of drivers were doing ``doughnuts,'' spinning their cars around in circles. Others ran and danced around, at one point trying to tip over cars, including a television news van, she said. It took about two hours before everyone finally left.
A few hours earlier, the park had hosted a hip-hop dance competition, called the Step N2 Spring Step Show, sponsored by KMEL-FM. The show, which ended at about 4 p.m., went off without incident and did not instigate the fighting, Hanna said.
But South Bay black leaders said they hoped the melee wouldn't give ``step shows'' -- popular among black fraternities and sororities -- a bad name.
``This is not what usually happens,'' said Marcus Williams, president of San Jose State University's chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, which was in the show.
``I don't think this is any different from any incident where a few bad apples spoil it for everyone,'' said Rick Callender, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
This was the first time Great America had hosted the Step N2 Spring show, and park officials had not made any decisions Sunday on whether they would host future shows or would change the park's security measures, Hanna said.
``I would hope they continue to work with communities of color,'' Callender said.
Great America shut down after stepshow
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