A Massive Banger Advertised On TikTok Led to Nearly 150 Arrests
“The majority of the crowd was just focused on having a good time,” a partygoer told BuzzFeed News.
An estimated 2,500 people attended a weekend-long party in Huntington Beach, California that began with a viral invitation on TikTok and resulted in nearly 150 arrests, according to police.
The Huntington Beach Police Department arrested 121 adults and 28 juveniles over the weekend on charges including vandalism, the firing of dangerous/illegal fireworks, failure to disperse, and curfew violations, Jennifer Carey, the department’s public information officer, said in a statement. Carey said “no significant injuries” were reported as of Sunday.
Earlier in the week, TikTok user adrian.lopez517 invited people to “pop out n celebrate” at his birthday gathering “Adrian’s kickback” at Huntington Beach State Park. The TikTok invitation went viral, and as of Monday morning, the hashtag #AdriansKickback has been viewed more than 274 million times.
Videos taken of the party, which has drawn comparisons to the 2012 movie “Project X,” show people dancing, climbing flagpoles, and setting off fireworks.
“The majority of the crowd was just focused on having a good time,” 24-year-old partygoer Jeryn Anderson told BuzzFeed News. “We were doing mosh pits, watching people do burnouts, dancing, and running from fireworks.” As Anderson put it, “It was lit.”
Another attendee, Erica Ramirez, told CBS Los Angeles, “It’s like don’t you remember when you were young? You just want to go and have fun, have parties, and we kind of lost that this year because of COVID.”
On Friday, the first night of the weekend-long celebration, Huntington Beach PD tweeted that it was “actively monitoring multiple social media posts advertising a large gathering on the beach this weekend.” The department declared an emergency curfew starting at 11:30 p.m. local time Saturday that lasted till Sunday at 5:30 a.m.
Carey said police departments throughout Orange County deployed more than 150 officers on Saturday.
Sean Carmitchel, an LA-based videographer, tweeted videos of the scene on Saturday and said officers were firing less-lethal weapons, like pepper bullets, into the crowd as people threw “some bottles, one firework, and a glow in the dark frisbee” toward police.