Newport Beach police arrested 402 people on the Balboa Peninsula on Saturday, July 4, after thousands of juveniles and young adults flooded the area, triggering an unlawful assembly declaration, a full beach closure and the looting of a Pavilions grocery store.

The arrest total is nearly seven times the 60 recorded during the same period last year, according to the city's official statement released Sunday, July 5.

Some 350 officers from the Newport Beach Police Department and 17 outside agencies responded beginning around 7 p.m. Saturday. By 8:25 p.m., police declared an unlawful assembly near 26th Street and the beach, ordering residents to shelter in place. By 10:50 p.m., every beach in the city was closed.

Deputy Police Chief Joshua Vincelet told the Daily Pilot that officers confronted "a large unruly crowd of close to 3,000 people fighting and causing massive disruption from 29th Street to 35th Street." Clearing the beach took almost two hours, he said.

About 200 of the arrests involved people who refused to leave the area near 28th Street after being told to disperse. One officer was struck by a mortar-style firework and evaluated at the scene before being released. Additional officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries, though the department did not release a count.

The night also produced 102 emergency incidents, 10 fires and 44 hospital transports, including six trauma patients. The Pavilions store on West Balboa Boulevard was looted, and videos posted to social media showed people carrying broken street signs.

Social media blamed for rapid crowd surge

The city said in a Facebook post Sunday that "social media posts drew a large influx of juveniles and young adults to the Newport Pier area within a matter of minutes" late Saturday evening. The Newport Beach Police Association said in an Instagram post that a "TikTok Takeover" drew people to the city and that officers were outnumbered by as much as 500 to 1 at some points before reinforcements arrived. The union did not substantiate that ratio with crowd estimates.

Mayor Lauren Kleiman confirmed many of those arrested were minors or from outside Newport Beach. She told the Los Angeles Times that social media "has really changed things" compared to prior years.

Preparations fell short

The chaos unfolded despite months of planning. The city had launched a "Not in Newport" zero-tolerance campaign, tripled fines in designated safety enhancement zones covering West Newport Beach and the Balboa Peninsula through Monday, July 6, and threatened one-strike permit revocations for short-term rentals tied to unruly guests. Police Chief Dave Miner had told the City Council in June that his department planned to deploy about 200 sworn officers. The actual response required nearly twice that.

Mia Meyers, 19, a worker at Sancho's Tacos near Pavilions, said she witnessed people pounding on the restaurant's windows around 5 p.m. Saturday. By Sunday morning, local volunteers had cleaned the area so thoroughly that Meyers said she couldn't see any trace of the damage when she arrived for her shift.

What's next

Police remained deployed through the weekend, with the safety enhancement zones in effect through Monday, July 6. Southbound lanes of Balboa Boulevard at Newport Boulevard reopened at 3:30 a.m. Sunday.

Kleiman said city officials planned to meet Monday, July 6, to debrief. "We're still processing everything. Come Monday morning, we will all sit down and debrief about what we can do better for next year," she said.