San Francisco police officers, as they do nearly every year, moved block by block and dispersed the hundreds of people who gathered on the streets of the Mission District for the annual July 4 fireworks shows.
Dispersal orders came a bit earlier than in past years, at about 10:45 p.m. — most years it is nearer to midnight. Dozens of officers clad in riot gear and carrying batons moved in a cordon line from near Garfield Square Park, where they had assembled, to 24th and Harrison streets, the site of the main shows this year.
“Move! Move!” the officers yelled, advancing on the rapidly retreating crowd. The revelers, who had congregated on several corners on and around 24th but were heaviest at Harrison and Treat Avenue, moved westbound on 24th. The police followed.
“We are closing the street and moving our officers forward to take the intersection at 24th and Treat,” blared a police captain through a megaphone, before the officers advanced further. “Please move westbound towards Folsom.”
There were more than a dozen police cars, SUVs, and white vans transporting masses of officers. Several cops circled the neighborhood in motorbikes. Some of the police officers carried less-lethal rifles. Drones buzzed overhead, surveilling the gatherings.
Some members of the crowd taunted and jeered at officers. One person bent over feet away from their line, and started twerking. But the dispersal orders were, at least on 24th, without real incident.
As people moved away from the police and towards Mission Street, they continued setting off the occasional fireworks just a block away from the officers. Stragglers, including one particular group of teens on scooters, lit more in the surrounding blocks despite patrolling police cars.
But the crowds were soon gone. By 1 a.m., a city truck drove down an empty 24th Street and sprayed water onto the pavement, followed by a street sweeper brushing away the debris.
The police department said there were no arrests.
Fireworks are illegal in San Francisco, as in the rest of the state. The San Francisco Police Department warned residents this year against setting them off, and city hospitals routinely take in patients on July 4 with missing fingers and other fireworks-related injuries.
Earlier in the night, the parties had been lively. Hundreds of mostly young people set off hundreds of pyrotechnics and noisemakers. Groups of teens zoomed down the crowded streets on lime-green Lime scooters. People climbed traffic lights to watch the shows, the taquerias were crowded, and many light beers were had.
On a bench on 24th and Harrison, Yesenia and Jasmine, both Mission residents, arrived at 9 p.m. to secure a front row seat. “This is the best block in the world,” Jasmine said. “It’s the only place I want to be.”
“It’s just a beautiful thing to see,” Yesenia added. “At the end of the day, this isn’t about celebrating America or fireworks, it’s really about seeing the neighborhood come together.”
Elsewhere in the city, blocks-long lines of cars clogged northbound lanes, making their way to the Golden Gate Bridge for the city-sanctioned show.
