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Concerns over protests prompt cancellation of Anaheim's 'National Night Out'
On July 31, 2012, wood still covers damage from recent protests at the Starbucks near Anaheim's City Hall. Members of the community took to the streets after two unrelated police killings of Latino youth on July 21 and 22nd.
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Concerns over protests prompt cancellation of Anaheim's 'National Night Out'
The July Anaheim police shootings that left two Latino men sparked days and nights of protests — some violent.
The protests have been calmer in the last week, but concerns over safety previously caused some city meetings to be postponed or cut short.
Now, Anaheim police have announced they'll cancel their plans for Tuesday's planned National Night Out events.
"We received information people had planned to protest and potentially disrupt our National Night Out," said Sergeant Bob Dunn with the Anaheim Police Department.
Dunn said the department tried to find a different location, but the department couldn't find a place on short notice to accommodate all the activities planned for the event.
He said Anaheim police are looking at doing something similar to National Night Out in the near future, but nothing has been finalized.
A few days after the July shootings, the city of Anaheim cancelled two Neighborhood Council meetings in the wake of sometimes violent protests, upsetting some residents — in particular, those in the city's south and central neighborhoods. City leaders were concerned the meetings wouldn’t be safe.
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The quarterly meetings bring together Anaheim city government employees and the police department to hear neighborhood concerns.
One of those meetings, five days after Manuel Diaz was shot by police, was scheduled at an elementary school in the same neighborhood where he was killed.
The Anaheim City Council is now planning to hold a special public meeting on the shootings and their aftermath at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
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