Dolores Park Hill Bomb + Pride Ride

Last year, the City of San Francisco performed mass arrests of 117 people, the vast majority of whom were teenagers, at the annual Dolores Park Hill Bomb, an informal event that is attended by many skaters from around the Bay Area. SFPD and our local piggy Supervisor, Rafael Mandelman, claimed that they were acting to protect the destruction of property and because the event was an unlawful assembly. This police action was a major escalation compared to previous years.

This year, the event is scheduled to happen on Saturday, July 6. However, the City plans to exacerbate the situation once again, and is warning skaters that it will merely repeat the debacle of last year. We are calling for the community to show up in two ways:

• this Monday, July 1, at 5 PM, there will be a community meeting with cops about the event, at 3371 16th St. (Mission Dolores Academy). We need people who are comfortable interacting with cops to show up to the meeting, to make it clear that involving cops in arresting the participants is not an acceptable solution, and that there is still time to set up infrastructure to make this a safer event for all.
• on Saturday, July 6, we also need community members to show up at the Dolores Park Hill Bomb event itself (Dolores St., between 18th and 21st St.). The event starts at 7 PM, but community members should show up an hour earlier in case skaters begin earlier. We keep us safe, by again being there to demonstrate to cops that mass arrests are not a solution. While we are hoping the cops will not escalate like they did last year, there is no guarantee that they will back down, and this event does present an arrest risk. We would appreciate anyone showing up, but especially medics or people with bikes to help with traffic control.

Please share this information with other groups and people who will show up to help de-escalate the situation with us!

Despite protestations to the contrary, no politician has performed any good faith effort to actually make the event more safe by installing temporary lane separators, road closures, removing the pavement markers, and ensuring medics are onsite. Similarly to how we advocate for bike infrastructure, time and time again we see cops and threats do nothing to keep us safe, whereas working to install actual infrastructure does.

We think the City's stance toward this year's event is a dangerous miscalculation, and we are asking community members need to step up and tell the City that their overreaction to the event is unacceptable.

Also, remember that we're celebrating Pride weekend with a slow ride later today (Saturday, June 29) at 1 PM! We hope to see you there!