Bystanders captured video, got pulled into fray as fights broke out at Fresno State game
As multiple fights broke out during the middle of Fresno State’s football game Saturday, some fans who said they were trying to deescalate the situation or just watching wound up getting pulled into the melee.
Even a security guard attempting to break things up was punched multiple times.
Many of the physical altercations were caught on video by fans at Bulldog Stadium for the game against Mountain West Conference rival Boise State. The Bulldogs lost 40-14.
In the end, five people were arrested, including a man who shoved a Fresno city police officer.
And one fan said he broke his wrist.
It is unclear if additional arrests will be made or other action taken as more footage of the incident surfaces.
“It was chaos,” said Armando Gonzalez, who was close by as he recorded video of the melee while standing on the concourse near the north end zone. “I was really concerned for the safety of the kids, the people who’d come to the game with children and the elderly. They were trying to get out of the way of the fighting.
“You also had innocent people who were just watching being pulled into the fight. It was ugly.”
Drunk fans
Fresno State Police Sgt. Carlos Frausto, who is the officer in charge during football games, said all of the incidents Saturday were alcohol-related and happened on the northeast end of the stadium.
Fresno State was playing in front of its first sellout in seven years, with the Associated Press No. 25-ranked Bulldogs matched against the rival Broncos before an announced crowd of 41,043.
The big fight in the stands, which was the last of three incidents Saturday, occurred just after halftime and involved at least 10 people, according to campus police.
Multiple videos show at least three young men dressed in black shirts throwing punches and a few guys without shirts fighting, too.
An older fan with a beard and a blue shirt appears to be watching the men in black fight, then gets kicked and tumbles down a few rows.
When event security tries to confront the person who’d kicked the older man, two other men in black shirts start punching the guard.
An onlooker wearing a No. 99 football jersey appears to try to help the security guard by pulling back one of the black-shirted young men.
However, both the man in the jersey and one of the young men in a black shirt end up stumbling down multiple steps before falling about five feet from the stands onto the concrete concourse.
The entanglement even spills onto the field, just a few feet from the back of the north end zone, where a group of city police officers arrested at least one fan.
“It was insane, sad thing to see,” said a man who goes by Barca fan (@SergioRamosMota) on Twitter.
Broken wrist and security questions
Campus police initially stated that no serious injuries were suffered during the fighting.
But one man, Richard Corey Huizar of Madera, said Sunday that he wound up breaking his wrist in two places.
In the videos, Huizar is the man wearing the red No. 99 jersey and plunges from the stands onto the concrete below with one of the black-shirted guys.
Huizar said his wrist is in a cast and he will have surgery Monday.
He was not arrested, but his father, Richard Huizar Sr., was.
“There was just a real big misunderstanding,” the younger Huizar said. “I wasn’t part of the fight, I was trying to help.”
He said he at first stayed away, but the clash moved toward him.
“The security guard was getting jumped by three dudes, … and I stepped in to help out the security guard,” he said.
After tumbling to the ground and heading toward the field, he said his father tried to tell officers his son wasn’t the aggressor.
“My dad came to tell them I wasn’t the one to start the fight,” Huizar said. “He was kind of pissed off because (he thought) they were arresting me.”
The elder Huizar can be seen pushing an officer in the video before being pinned to the ground by three officers.
“Maybe more officers or security should have been there to resolve the problem more quickly so it wouldn’t have escalated to where it went,” he said.
The Fresno Police Department declined Sunday to answer questions about its role in dealing with the incidents, referring The Bee to the public information office on Monday.
Additional security measures will be added for future games, according to an emailed statement from Fresno State Athletic Director Terrance Tumey.
“This was a very unfortunate incident that led to these arrests,” he said. “We regret that this situation occurred as it impacts the game experience for our loyal Red Wave fans who came to support our talented student-athletes.”
He noted that this was an isolated incident and stated no other such arrests were made this season. Fresno State police officers responded immediately and were supported by other local law-enforcement agencies, he said.
“This type of behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated,” he said.
Alcohol sales at Fresno State games
It was not immediately known if Fresno State would make any changes regarding alcohol sales inside Bulldog Stadium and other athletic facilities.
Nonetheless, some fans already are calling for the school to ban alcohol sales at sporting events once again.
For roughly a 10-year stretch (starting as early as December 2005 for some facilities and as late as September 2008 for others), the university had banned alcohol sales during athletic events held at university-owned or operated facilities.
But by the start of the 2017-18 football season, Fresno State was given the green light to sell beer again at football, baseball and softball games following an executive order by the California State University Chancellor’s office that repealed the previous system-wide policy.
Beer sales from six home football games that season ended up generating $90,000.
Of course, nixing beer sales inside the stadium does not prevent fans from drinking to excess at home, in bars or while tailgating before they even go through the gates.
Gonzalez, a lifelong Fresno State fan who has been going to Bulldogs sporting events regularly for the past eight years, said he has noticed rowdier behavior in recent years but was not sure if Fresno State should ban alcohol sales.
He did express relief that Saturday’s fights didn’t lead to more injuries.
“It was actually kind of scary,” Gonzalez said. “There were so many fights happening at the same time.
“Everyone’s judgment was not right because everyone was extremely intoxicated. That’s what it looked like to me. But for those guys to mess it up for everybody else who wants to responsibly enjoy a beer during the game? That’s not cool if the innocent get punished.”
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Bystanders captured video, got pulled into fray as fights broke out at Fresno State game."
