Huntington Beach Riot After Surfing Competition; Police Made Arrests (VIDEO)

A violent riot raged through Huntington Beach on Sunday night after a surfing competition in Huntington Beach, clashing with police, toppling portable toilets, brawling in the streets and apparently vandalizing and looting at least one business, according to police and witnesses. The mob erupted among a crowd of thousands gathered for the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing, which includes surfing, skateboarding and BMX biking events, possibly after a fistfight in downtown Huntington Beach. Police made eight arrests on suspicion of failure to disperse, according to a Huntington Beach Police Department statement.

People in the mob strapped bandanas across their faces and threw rocks and bottles at police officers. Police donned riot gear and fired back with pepper balls. Aerial footage showed about 18 overturned portable toilets on the streets of downtown Huntington Beach. It was unclear exactly when the riots began, but witnesses began mentioning the riots in social media posts earlier than 8 p.m. A video posted to Facebook showed a mob throwing a stop sign through a store window and making off with merchandise, including a bicycle.

Burt Etheredge of “easyrider,” the vandalized store, described watching the mob make a smash and grab burglary from the store’s front window. “We were all huddled inside the building and we had the lights off because all the people were up here mobbing around, and I was inside and I saw them tearing down the stop sign,” he said. “As soon as that stop sign came down, I knew that stop sign was coming through the window. And sure enough, two seconds later, it did.”

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