Eighteen people have been charged in connection with “Stud Alley,” an unauthorized Pride weekend block party in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood that police shut down last month, prosecutors said Wednesday.The defendants each face misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly, failing to disperse and resisting, obstructing or delaying a police officer, according to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. They are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday morning at the Hall of Justice.
Police first encountered the party — which since the pandemic has become a tradition of Pride festivities — shortly before 11 p.m. on June 27. Police ordered the crowd to disperse and directed the DJ to stop performing and leave, prosecutors said. The alley, Kissling Street, was eventually cleared. But within an hour, many of the same people allegedly reconvened on Washburn Street, where a crowd of about 200 people had gathered for a second unauthorized block party, authorities said. Police arrested 18 people while breaking up the gathering. Two officers allegedly suffered injuries, prosecutors said. Authorities also reported finding anti-police graffiti and makeshift barricades that had allegedly been erected to prevent officers from entering the area.
An investigation into the event is ongoing…