By
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - Mardi Gras revelry turned violent early yesterday in Seattle, Philadelphia and Fresno, Calif., with crowds fighting, smashing storefronts and looting.
Police fought back on horseback and with pepper spray.
Some 100 people were arrested in Philadelphia. About 70 people were injured in Seattle, and two of them were described as in severely critical condition with head injuries, one from a fall off an overpass.
In Fresno, one person was stabbed as an unruly crowd stormed the city's Tower District, overturning portable toilets, smashing windows and hurling bottles at police officers.
By contrast, the more notorious pre-Lenten partying in New Orleans was largely peaceful, even though upward of a million people - many in costume and some in little more than a smile - had jammed the streets as Fat Tuesday jiggled and giggled its way into Ash Wednesday.
Philadelphia revelers smashed windows, and dozens of people looted a liquor store and other businesses on South Street, a trendy stretch of bars and shops at the edge of downtown. It took police about an hour to clear the street.
"Disappointing is the only word I can think to say," city managing director Joe Martz said early yesterday as he walked down the street strewn with trash, broken glass, empty beer cans and a few lace bras. "It's disgraceful."
At a news conference yesterday, Philadelphia Mayor John Street said he wouldn't call for cancellation of the annual event, although officials had discussed a curfew or other restrictions.
"Those businesses who are pumping people full of booze from 7 a.m. in the morning until they basically explode should be held accountable," City Councilman Frank DiCicco said yesterday.
Philadelphia police had set up barricades to keep pedestrians on the sidewalks, but late Tuesday the crowds poured into the street. Eventually, police closed the street to vehicles instead of trying to push back the partiers.
Just after 11 p.m., police started to clear the street with a line of officers on bicycles and horses. But after advancing about four blocks into the heart of the club district, they were assaulted with bottles thrown by revelers who stood their ground, police said.
"What happened here tonight that disturbed me was the viciousness with the bottles," Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Frank Pryor said. "We didn't touch anyone. We were very nice to them. But it seems they wanted a confrontation with the police."
Most of the Philadelphia arrests were for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and fighting. Most defendants were fined $300.
The fights in Seattle broke out when as many as 4,000 people crowded into the streets.
Police broke up the crowd with pepper spray. At least 21 people were arrested on charges that included assault, rioting, reckless endangerment and hit-and-run driving.
"I'm absolutely sickened at what I saw just several hours ago in Pioneer Square," Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said at a news conference yesterday. He said one of those arrested had been waving a cocked .45-caliber pistol.
One of those injured was Ralph Radford, a free-lance photographer working for The Associated Press, who said he was jumped and beaten by three or four people. He was treated at the scene.
Fresno's annual celebration turned ugly just before 9 p.m. Tuesday as hundreds of people began rushing gates of the event, police said.
Vandals in the crowd of about 10,000 shattered about 40 shop windows, vandalized police cars and set trash bins ablaze. Numerous assaults were reported. A stabbing victim suffered minor wounds.
"The crowd was not a Mardi Gras crowd," said Lt. Joseph Callahan. "It was a bunch of gang-banging juveniles causing trouble."
In an annual ritual in New Orleans, a phalanx of mounted police officers, street sweepers and garbage trucks moved down Bourbon Street promptly at midnight in the French Quarter to ring down the curtain on a weeklong party.
Before midnight, the Quarter's famous iron-wrought balconies had overflowed with partiers tossing plastic bead necklaces to people on the street. In exchange, many women gladly exposed their breasts - and were quickly surrounded by men with video cameras.
"It's like nothing else in the world - the world's biggest freak show," said Wolf Martin, 57, a Los Angeles software engineer who was attending his first Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
No major problems were reported, and New Orleans police were expected to release arrest figures yesterday afternoon. The ankle-deep trash was to be weighed to get an idea of whether the enormous crowds set a record.
