WeHo Gone Wild: West Hollywood Park Brawl Latest in Disturbing Trend of Violence

Here’s another edition of WeHo Gone Wild, in this episode we bring you a brawl on the edge of West Hollywood Park — across the street from the Sheriff’s station no less.

Video sent to WEHOonline shows the altercation unfolding at West Hollywood Park on San Vicente Boulevard this past weekend. The footage shows what appears to begin as a standoff between two young men before one throws the first punch. The fight grows pretty quickly as additional guys join in and end up in a dog pile that eventually involves three or four individuals while folks stand by and watch. It’s not clear from the brief clip if any of them are intoxicated.

It’s the latest in a pattern that has repeated itself across the Rainbow District for months.

The brawls and batteries go back to March 21, when a fight spilled out of a bar in the 8500 block of Santa Monica Boulevard. Two victims were attacked by as many as six suspects after being ejected from a venue. Both suffered visible injuries to their heads and faces. The suspects fled before deputies arrived. No arrests were made.

Three weeks later, on April 12, another brawl broke out at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente, outside Mattie’s WeHo. Sheriff’s logged what is known in cop code as a 415, which meant a fight involving roughly 10 people in the middle of the street. Deputies responded Code 3 — lights and sirens. By the time they got there, the group had broken up and disappeared. Again, all within a stone’s throw from the Sheriff’s station. No arrests. No suspect descriptions.

The fights haven’t been limited to just the bars. Last month two unlicensed hot dog vendors brawled at the same corner in an alleged turf dispute, their carts left unattended on the sidewalk as the confrontation went to the ground. A business owner in the area told WEHOonline at the time that unlicensed vendor carts were driving a significant share of the violence. “These fights are not spilling out from the clubs,” said Paul Nicholls, operations partner at Beaches Tropicana. “They’re happening on the street because there are unregulated environments where people are just hanging out eating and drinking.”

The West Hollywood City Council discussed the issue May 19. Councilmember John Erickson asked City staff for an update on patrol efforts, saying that he was reading stories and hearing complaints from constituents. Danny Rivas, the City’s Director of Community Safety, and Lt. Ashley Turner of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station outlined current enforcement efforts. The City confirmed it was deploying one sergeant and five deputies to the corridor on Friday and Saturday nights. Neither official addressed what the City considers adequate staffing for a nightlife district that draws thousands of people on weekend nights.

On June 1, a man was arrested after assaulting two LASD deputies who responded to break up a fight at the 8900 block of Santa Monica Boulevard near San Vicente around 2:15 a.m. He was booked under California Penal Code 69, resisting an executive officer through force or violence.

Two weeks later, Reed Deugenio, owner of Big Dix Hotdogs, a licensed vendor, told WEHOonline that an unlicensed competitor threatened his life Saturday night in the Rainbow District. Deugenio said he crossed the street three times to flag down officers. “I went to the officer and said that this guy is threatening my life,” Deugenio said. “He’s gonna be at my house at 3:30 in the morning. He knows where I live.” A second man connected to the unlicensed operation was arrested the same night on a separate threat.

WEHOonline talked to Sergeant Lovano of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station back in April. He acknowledged there had been an uptick in incidents but said it was difficult to quantify precisely — not every fight gets reported. He also noted that social media and the prevalence of phone cameras had amplified the perception of violence, with videos spreading widely even when the underlying incidents might once have gone unnoticed.

Residents will tell you fights in the Rainbow District are nothing new. Saturday nights on Santa Monica Boulevard have always had a bit of an edge. Any time you mix alcohol with youths you’ve got a cocktail of drama and tempers brewing over into brawls. But something definitely feels different now. Business owners and residents who have been a part of boulevard for decades tell us the frequency, the brazenness, and the spillover into other areas is “different and disturbing.”

The City has increased enforcement efforts in recent months, deploying overtime code enforcement officers, additional deputies, and security ambassadors. Officials have acknowledged that vendors frequently return as soon as enforcement teams leave.

The question both residents and business owners keep asking has not changed. How many more of these need to happen before something does.