Increased enforcement at Saturday’s San Francisco 49ers game following several instances of violence at Candlestick Park last weekend helped keep the battle on the gridiron.
Only one person was arrested, two people were cited for public intoxication and 12 people were ejected from Saturday’s game, which ended in 30-7 win for the visiting Houston Texans, San Francisco police Officer Albie Esparza said.
The increased police presence at Candlestick Park was a response to the Aug. 21 game versus the Oakland Raiders, where two men were shot in the parking lot and another man was beaten unconscious in the stadium’s bathroom.
One of the shooting victims was released from the hospital and the other two men were listed in fair condition as of Tuesday.
Fights in the stands and in the parking lot were caught on amateur video and police Chief Greg Suhr said last week that this was not typical behavior.
“Last Saturday night was an aberration,” he said.
Attendance at the Aug. 21 game was a third less than a typical regular season game, and Suhr said that there were 40 percent more officers at that game than would be at a regular season game.
Despite that, he said, the amount of calls for unruly conduct rose dramatically.
Although only one person was booked Saturday, 12 people were arrested at the Aug. 21 game.
There was also a significant drop in calls made for an ambulance, with only six medical calls Saturday, which falls below the average of seven to 10 calls per game. The Aug. 21 game saw 50 such calls and the number of public intoxications more than doubled, Suhr said.
“The degenerate behavior that happened on Saturday is not going to be tolerated,” 49ers president Jed York said at a news conference last week. “We are not going to allow that type of behavior at our football games.”
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