Opinion: Can football, fighting and downtown L.A. mix?
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Imagine how surprised some Bay Area-area fans must have felt Saturday night when they went to a boxing match/gunfight and a football game broke out.
OK, it’s an old joke. But there was nothing funny about the violence at last weekend’s San Francisco 49ers-Oakland Raiders game. As The Times’ Julie Cart reported:
Police are looking for a person of interest in one of two shootings at a preseason football game between the cross-bay rival San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders at Candlestick Park, an event peppered with numerous fights in the stands and an assault that left a man unconscious in a bathroom. The violence occurred during and after the 49ers’ 17-3 victory Saturday night in their home stadium. Videos taken by fans and posted online depict fights and aggressive behavior in the stands during the game. Callers to a Bay Area radio show Sunday described navigating a gantlet of drunk and abusive fans to reach the restroom.
Gosh, it kinda makes those of us Angelenos old enough to remember their tenure here all misty-eyed about the Raiders. The team’s supporters, as most NFL fans know, have a reputation for, shall we say, colorful language and aggressive behavior.
But Monday, the organization’s chief executive, Amy Trask, came out, uh, swinging over that perception. She called the majority of Raiders supporters ‘terrific people and terrific fans,’ adding:
I’m aware of the perception, and I don’t believe the perception is the reality. Stereotypes are insidious. It’s so simple to stereotype Raiders fans. It’s an easy story. If you are hearing frustration coming through in my voice it’s because there’s frustration in my voice.’
Is she right? Probably. The truth is -- as the beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium this season shows -- fan violence knows no boundaries, either by team or by sport. Just go to ‘Violence in Sports’ on Wikipedia for a nauseating sampling of egregious examples.
So does the weekend violence in San Francisco matter to us? Well, Los Angeles is in the middle of a debate over a proposed football stadium downtown. It would be a job creator, supporters say, and would give a long-term economic boost to downtown L.A.
But will fan violence be part of that package? No reasonable person can say it won’t be. And there will be costs associated with that -– police protection, for example -– that the city will have to shoulder, at least in part.
Is that a reason not to build the stadium? In these tough economic times, no.
But it might be another reason to avoid downtown on game day.
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-- Paul Whitefield
