Near-riot breaks out at the Rose Bowl before USC - UCLA game

[Initech]

Brawl in Rose Bowl parking lot

PASADENA, Calif. -- Dozens of fans brawled in a Rose Bowl parking lot before the Southern California-UCLA football game Saturday, leaving two men stabbed, two police officers with minor injuries and three men arrested, authorities said.

About 40 fans of both schools fought at about 4:20 p.m. in a grassy part of Brookside Golf Course that the stadium uses for event parking, Pasadena police Commander Darryl Qualls said.

One person was stabbed in the cheek and the other was stabbed in the back during the melee some three hours before the crosstown-rivalry game between the Bruins and Trojans was set to start, Qualls said. Both were taken by ambulance to Huntington Memorial Hospital. He described their condition as stable.

One officer was treated for a sprained hand, the other for a sprained ankle, and both were released, Qualls said.

Two men who police believe stabbed the victims were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and were being held in Pasadena City Jail on $1 million bail, Qualls said. A third man was arrested for investigation of assault on a police officer, Qualls said.

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/news/story?id=5885712

Tailgating. Serious business. :yoiks:

[kentauros]

1. If only we operated our political system like we do our sports.

Then we'd never have low voter turnout and people would be making bets on the outcomes :P

[Initech]

2. We could have a new reality show: Are you smarter than your elected representative?

[Merlot]

3. I wonder if there is more to this than team rivalry

I know fist fights break out, but stabbing, attempted murder? pretty high stakes for college football.

[Initech]

4. I live in the middle of it - shit gets serious between these two schools.

[Swamp Rat]

5. Idiots

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[RandySF]

6. Common occurrence in other countries

I wouldn't ever want to be hanging around outside a stadium a Madrid, Barcelona, Glasgow, Milan or Rio before certain soccer matches. It's not about the sport, but a particular game represents to people in a given community. In Glasgow, it's about the "Protestant" Rangers vs. "Irish-Catholic" Celtic or the Catalan FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid, the club one favored by Francisco Franco. I suspect the rivalry between USC and UCLA are probably more about the reasons people identify with a given school.

[Initech]

7. Oh when I went to Europe last year...

I was hanging out with a bartender from Manchester, and he was telling me that soccer riots were a really common occurrence when MU played. I can only imagine...