Apparently, nine people got shot on Halloween. In the Castro. During one of the biggest celebrations in SF during the year. And one of Mayor Gavin Newsome's responses? Something to the effect of: If somebody had died, the party would have been over right away.
K, let's examine, even though nine people (most of them innocent) were injured by bullets on Tuesday night, it wasn't concern enough to completely shut down the party? Now, I agree that the issue of whether or not Halloween should be celebrated like this in future years, should definitely be on the top of Newsome's agenda. And police did break up the party pretty much right after the incident happened. But it does take a while to get thousands of loitering peeps in costume to wander aimfully out of the Castro. And police did handle the situation well enough once the shooting took place, I guess. Essentially, it was gang-related. The questions arise: Do we make people go through metal detectors? Do we have most of the police force out paroling? Because even with 500 officers, a good percentage of which were in civilian clothing in order to blend in, people got in with guns.
I don't know. San Francisco wouldn't be the same without Halloween in the Castro. But nine people getting shot? That definitely takes the wind out of it for me.
For complete story: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/11/02/MNGG3M4KAV1.DTL