Gilroy
– After a weekend bar brawl ended in a cloud of peppery powder –
but no arrests – bar boosters and critics alike are alarmed. Some
are upset by the pepper balls; others, by the lack of arrests.
Gilroy – After a weekend bar brawl ended in a cloud of peppery powder – but no arrests – bar boosters and critics alike are alarmed. Some are upset by the pepper balls; others, by the lack of arrests.
Gilroy police shot paintball-like rounds into the 150-person crowd outside the Krazy Koyote Bar and Grill about 1:30am Sunday, aiming to quell fights and disperse the stragglers from a packed “Spring Break Bash.” An hour earlier, bar owners George and Marcos Headley said they called police to arrest “an uncooperative gentleman” who refused to leave the club. When security guards detained the man outside the Church Street club, awaiting police, his friends gathered and confronted security guards, the Headleys explained.
By the time police arrived, security guards had released the troublemaker, the Headleys said, but his friends stuck around as Krazy Koyote cleared its back room, and roughly 150 people spilled into the parking lot. Not everyone was fighting, but smaller spats had broken out within the crowd, police said, and rubber-necking revelers refused to leave. Surveying the sizable crowd, officers decided to deploy pepper balls.
The Headleys say that patrons flung three beer bottles at officers after the pepper-balls were shot, not beforehand, as an earlier Dispatch report implied. After the rounds were fired, clubgoers left rubbing their eyes and coughing, but no one landed in handcuffs.
Pepper-balls, lack of arrests questioned
“If you have a fight that large with no arrests made, the right message is not being sent,” said associate pastor Angel Ruiz, of the neighboring Foothills Four-Square Church, which rents to Krazy Koyote and has criticized the popular bar in the past. “This is only one of a series of incidents that have occurred … There doesn’t seem to be an end to it.”
Others asked why the whole crowd was pepper-balled. No one was sprayed in February, when two people were stabbed outside the popular bar, recalled clubgoer Mike McKinney, 31, who drives north from Monterey at least once a month to catch shows at Krazy Koyote.
“Security had everything under control. It wasn’t that serious,” said McKinney, who was waiting for his girlfriend outside the club with a cousin when police began firing pepper-balls. One hit his car; a second struck his cousin’s arm. “What the hell? We didn’t do anything wrong.”
The Headleys hesitated to criticize officers’ use of force, but said it surprised them.
“I can’t make that call, because I’m not a police officer,” said George Headley, “but why wasn’t anybody arrested, if it was at that level? … The people that were getting pepper-sprayed didn’t have anything to do with the incident.”
Too few officers to make arrests, police say
Gilroy police said they had too few officers to arrest the brawlers, and could only disperse the crowd.
Twelve Gilroy officers, three police supervisors and one police captain responded to the incident, and were assisted by a handful of officers from the California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s office, which handled traffic control and monitored reckless drivers, said Gilroy Police Sgt. Jim Gillio. There were no evident injuries, he added, and no one stepped forward with a complaint.
“Without a victim to desire prosecution, we don’t have grounds [for arrest,] unless we observe a serious injury,” Gillio said. “It was more like mutual combat.”
Following the incident, police notified Sgt. Dan Castaneda, who handles Gilroy’s bar and dancehall permits, and the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control – the standard protocol after any significant incident at an ABC-licensed venue. Both Gillio and Castaneda said Krazy Koyote responded appropriately, by calling police as soon as a problem arose.
“There’s no way I can tell you everything’s absolutely fine there,” Castaneda said, “but how do we control people who are bent on causing problems? … We’re working in cooperation to make this location as safe as possible.”
Bar owners complain of stereotyping
In retrospect, the Headleys said two things went wrong: Security guards should have just kicked out the uncooperative man, instead of holding him for police, and bar owners should have waited until the man had left to empty the venue. Overall, however, the Headleys and the police agree that Krazy Koyote did everything it could to quell the threat.
Foothills’ Ruiz disagrees. Recently, the church’s senior pastor, Mark Wilson, slammed the bar as attracting “gang-bangers” from Oakland and Richmond – a dig that the Headleys say is unfounded. Since November, there have been two stabbings in the bar’s Church Street parking lot.
“It seems as if the police department has taken on the role of security for the bar,” said Ruiz. “Too many resources are being dedicated … It’s impacting the overall safety of the community.”
The Headleys complain that the bar is being blamed for problems beyond its control, and its diverse clientele are being stereotyped. Popular venues are more likely to have problems, Castaneda agreed, and Krazy Koyote has always co-operated with police.
“Not one person in the police department has come to say, ‘We don’t like what you’re doing, could you change it?’ ” said George Headley. “They know about our events weeks in advance. We’re in contact with them all the time.”
As for Wilson’s claim that the bar attracts out-of-town troublemakers, Headley said, “Is he walking through the bar and asking for zip codes? If people are coming here from Oakland, we’re doing way better than we thought.”
