Cops treated a Pride dance party like a riot, attorneys say 22%
By Michael McLaughlin19% George Kelly17%
7/24/2026, 10:53:47 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Self-Serving Bias, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 14.3% saturation with 81 hits. Analysis detected 584 faulty-reasoning hits from 568 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 35.5% and a BS Rank of 22% (17,191 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 78.50% of the article peer group.
Supporters and lawyers for 18 people charged for crimes stemming from the Stud Alley street party during last month’s Pride weekend are criticizing authorities for treating the event like a riot.
A rally is planned to support the Stud Alley 18 on Friday evening at Harvey Milk Plaza at Castro and Market streets.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s office charged the group on Wednesday with unlawful assembly, refusal to disperse at a riot, and resisting, obstructing, or delaying a peace officer.
All alleged crimes are misdemeanors.
“This was a dance party that [the police] decided to put on riot gear and break up,” said Jeff Wozniak, one of the defense attorneys on the case.
“We gotta call this what it was.
This was supposed to be a safe haven for the LGBT community.”
The San Francisco Police Department said officers first encountered a crowd of about 300 people on Kissling Street in SoMa around 11 p.m. on June 27.
The annual party on Pride weekend featured a DJ, but lacked a permit, the police said.
Cops ordered the party to break up.
About an hour later, police arrested 18 people from a crowd of approximately 200 who had re-formed a party two blocks away.
In the melee that ensued at the second gathering, two officers were injured, the SFPD said.
Two vehicles were also vandalized, and anti-police messages were spray-painted on walls, the police said.
But supporters of the 18 defendants say the police response was heavy-handed and provoked the vandalism.
“Stud Alley happens regularly.
The people were violent in response to the police violence,” said Mama Ganuush, a Palestinian African activist and drag queen, who is promoting the rally.
“A lot of people are really upset about what happened to the trans community.”
The district attorney’s office declined to comment.
The case includes two people who were also arrested during a Nov. 16, 2023, pro-Palestine protest on the Bay Bridge that blocked westbound traffic for hours during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that brought leaders from Pacific countries to San Francisco.
Shana Kim and Jersey Noah Deutsch, an independent journalist who posted videos from Stud Alley, were accused of misdemeanor unlawful assembly and failure to disperse in the bridge protest, court records show.
Deutsch was also held on suspicion of disorderly conduct and disobeying a peace officer, according to records.
Attempts to reach Deutsch and Kim were unsuccessful.
At the Trans March on the day before the Stud Alley party, police arrested five people during an altercation that allegedly began when people were spray-painting private property near Market and Eighth Streets.
In the confrontation, two officers were injured, according to the SFPD.
The department previously said that officers focused on a small number of people “engaged in specific criminal conduct, including vandalism, unlawful assembly, and, at the Trans March, physically interfering with a lawful arrest.”
Ganuush disputed that account and said organizers of Friday’s rally are calling for the police to avoid Pride events next year.
“I would call it a police riot,” Ganuush said.
“The police came to somehow take revenge on trans people.
We don’t know why.”
Supervisor Jackie Fielder has opened an inquiry into police actions during Pride weekend, sending a series of questions to the Police Chief Derrick Lew.
The Stud Alley 18 are scheduled to be arraigned on Aug.
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100%flagged-word coverageJeff Wozniak
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