S.F. Celebrates Win With Traditional Fights, Gunshots

Fighting, drunkenness and the firing of celebratory gunshots led to some 30 arrests Sunday night following the San Francisco 49ers’ Super Bowl victory.

“It’s definitely getting worse,” police officer Miguel Granados said 2 hours after the 49-26 rout of the San Diego Chargers. “People are just out of control.”

The arrests came in the Mission district, traditionally the wildest part of the city after a Super Bowl.

Police closed off three streets, a routine crowdcontrol measure in the Mission, and looked for other sites to hold arrested people after the neighborhood’s jail became full.

Citizens and police had been through this type of party four times before, but that didn’t stop San Franciscans from packing bars and dancing in the streets after the 49ers won a record fifth Super Bowl.

Horn-honking motorists and screaming bar patrons joined in an impromptu cacophony of celebration outside the Bus Stop bar in the Cow Hollow district of the city. In the Sunset district, people set off fireworks from their apartment windows.

Along Union Street, celebrants applauded when a flatbed truck drove past with the cab decorated to look like a 49ers helmet. One fan jumped atop a newspaper rack to lead the crowd in repeated choruses of “We Are the Champions.”

Police, in riot gear, were tolerant of the Union Street partying - one officer edging through the crowds on a motorcycle stopped long enough to give a high-five to a fan.