San Jose experiences violent weekend at popular late-night spots
A brawl and stabbing at two popular San Jose shopping and dining districts prompted a large police response over the weekend.
An army of San Jose Police units converged on San Pedro Square early Sunday morning after a brawl broke out and spilled onto the streets.
Police said some of the people involved then attacked arriving officers. Officers arrested eight people on various charges including battery of a police officer.
A video showing dozens of police cars was recorded by Omar, a neighbor who was surprised at what happened right in front of him.
"I've never seen that many cops. I thought it was like a bomb or something. I got scared like, 'What's going on,'" Omar said.
It was a weekend of violence at popular night spots in San Jose that started when a 15-year-old boy was fatally stabbed at Santana Row.
An online fundraising site said the victim, David Gutierrez, was attacked while on a Valentine's date with his girlfriend. Police have not identified suspects or a motive.
On Monday, the crowds returned to the shopping district, but one neighbor said security has been growing.
"I think it's scary, and I do believe late at night and on weekends there is some bad behavior that's not caught all the time. Now, I think it's gone too far, and we need to do something about it," said Shivi, who lives on Santana Row.
According to the Police Department's crime mapping website — which posts the exact locations of reported crimes — Santana Row and San Pedro Square are not major crime hotspots."
"What happened here I don't think is any type of trend," said Alex Stettinski, President of the San Jose Downtown Association.
Stettinski said most establishments have private security and city police do regular patrols in the area.
"It was an incident; it was an outlier that happened. We have so much vibrancy, we have thousands of people coming to downtown on the weekends and these things can happen once in a while. The police were amazing."
Stettinski said security is always something to watch, especially now with crowd sizes growing on the weekends.
And this year for the first time, weekend foot traffic at San Pedro Square has grown beyond pre-pandemic levels.
