Gang members mingled among the costumed crowd in downtown Santa
Barbara on Halloween night, and around 9:45 p.m., at State and
Canon Perdido streets, a huge brawl broke out among armed
teenagers. Officers arriving at the scene found 20 young men
fighting at once, and so engrossed in the battle that officers had
to pull them apart..According to Santa Barbara Police Department
Lt. Paul McCaffrey, a cordon of officers managed to chase down and
arrest 10 teenagers, several of them carrying clubs and knives. A
16-year-old was hospitalized with three stab wounds to the back and
a 14-year-old was hospitalized with unspecified injuries. It was
just the latest scuffle in an ongoing, seemingly intensifying
conflict between crosstown gangs.
