TEAM SPIRIT LEADS TO NEAR RIOT



DANA POINT, CA-- After a close basketball game at the local high school, fanatical fans turned into an angry mob. Authorities feared the incident was on the verge of becoming a full-blown riot. Deputies from Dana Point had to call for "back-up" from Laguna Niguel and San Juan Capistrano police to deal with the threatening crowd that had surrounded the officers in the Dana Hills High parking lot.

Tension was high in the Dana Hills gym Friday, 6 February, 1998, as the Dana Dolphins were running neck and neck with Mater Dei, the top team in the league. "It was a close game, and there were a lot of heated exchanges and emotions by the fanatic fans on both sides," explained Lt. Paul Ratchford, chief of Dana Point Police Services. "School officials were able to keep things under control in the gym." Then Mater Dei won the game by two points, and after the mob of fans poured out onto the parking lot, things took an ugly turn when an adult who should have known better, Robert Guigan, 52, challenged to fight anyone from Dana Hills High School. Unwilling to let a stupid challenge go unmet, Derek Dossey, 19, engaged the fifty-two year old adult in a street fight. Sports fans immediately recognized that a new match was at hand, and quickly surrounded the two men as they assaulted each other, anxious to watch this entertaining new show. That was when the officers called for back-up.

Police from neighboring towns arrived promptly, and broke up the crowd, videotaping the whole episode. The adult who started the fight was arrested and became apologetic, and was released from custody; but the teenager became abusive and uncooperative, and was taken to Orange County Jail for fighting. Both men were not residents of Dana Point, but were instead residents of neighboring Laguna Niguel.

SOURCE: Reprinted from the 12 February, 1998, issue of the Dana Point News.

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