By Allen Payton

New details have emerged in the case of the melee that occurred at the Deer Valley Safeway in Antioch, Friday night, June 12, caused by some of the riders on a party bus from San Francisco. Antioch Police Corporal James McMurry, who was not on duty Friday night, provided information from the “shift highlight” from that night.

Antioch residents discussing the incident on Facebook wanted to know the name of the bus company, where the riders on the bus were from and why they came to Antioch. While that information has not yet been released, one new part of the story was revealed by McMurry.

It appears that some people on the bus were in Antioch to meet up with others in the parking lot.

“Some of the merchandise stolen from Safeway were taken to other vehicles and those vehicles fled,” he stated. “There were at least two other cars in the parking lot that had fled prior to the officers’ arrival.”

In addition, he provided the following information from the highlight:

– No name of the bus company was listed.

– Officers didn’t document the actual name in their report.

– Driver out of the City [San Francisco].

– The majority of people were from S.F. Some were from Vallejo.

– There were 40-50 people on the bus.

– Twelve people were arrested, ages 16-21. Officers didn’t include the names of the adults arrested in their report. Just wrote “too many to list.”

– Five guns were seized that were on the bus.

“We have the guns in evidence,” McMurry said.

– A total of 10 police officers and one CSO responded.

“They were cited and released at the scene with a court date to appear on various dates, based on whether they were adults or juveniles,” he shared. “The court dates are all for Superior Court in Pittsburg, except for juveniles who would most likely have to appear in juvenile court in Martinez.”

– One of the people had an outstanding arrest warrant.

When asked why that person was released, McMurry said, “they would have been released based on instructions in the warrant.”

The Antioch Police Department has a copy of all the citations with all the names of those arrested.

“Those would have been turned in with the police reports,” he added.

A request will be made to the police department on Monday, for the names of the adults arrested and the name of the bus company.

Click here to view the video of the incident that was posted by Casey Downey on his Facebook page. While he was not at Safeway at the time, the video was provided to him by someone who was, but wishes to remain anonymous.

The Night Manager at Safeway, Maria Lazzerini, was not able to speak to the media for this article and instead directed the Herald to speak with Safeway’s Public Affairs department. However, she did provide the following email she sent Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando on Sunday morning, June 14:

Chief Cantando,

My name is Maria Lazzerini and I am the night manager at the Deer Valley Safeway. I just wanted to take a few minutes to share some feedback from the incident that occurred on Friday June 12th with the party bus that caused a big ordeal.

First off, I commend your 911 dispatcher for her professionalism during the call. I know that it was a stressful situation on our part and she handled it awesome. Second, I want to share that in our time of need, your departments response time was phenomenal. In a time that I know your department is short staffed, your response was fast.

Lastly, I want to personally thank every single officer that came out to the scene. I don’t remember every single one but the following stuck out, Officer D. Hopwood, Officer J. Jeoung, Officer Chang, Officer Meads, your K-9 Officer and all of the other people there. I know that I was definitely stressed and shaken up over the whole situation but the officers were extremely professional and handled the situation the best that they could. Dealing with such a loud and obnoxious crowd of 50 kids was not easy, but they made it seem carefree. They took the time to fully investigate the situation and look at all the video surveillance to help determine all the culprits in this situation. Very time consuming but they never hesitated one bit.

I have worked at this Safeway store for almost 10 years and have had to call your department quite a bit. I have always found your officers to be extremely awesome, very approachable and never hesitant to give that helping hand. In closing, you should be a very proud Chief to have a great group of officers. You may not have the full force you need, but the force you have is a strong and great group of men and women.From myself and my crew at Antioch Safeway, I want to thank you again for everything you guys did the other night.

Sincerely, Maria Lazzerini Night Manager-Safeway #1259

Check back later as more details are made known.

Antioch Herald Writer Luke Johnson contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2015 at 11:36 pm and is filed under News, Police & Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.