Senior Bowl at Culver City Cut Short Because of Fan Violence

The L.A. Prep Senior Football Bowl at Culver City High was called with 4:43 left in the third quarter Saturday night because of fan violence.

Officials decided to end the game when fans began to scatter in the North-East stands late in the third quarter.

That incident followed a fight in the South-West stands at the end of the first half, which apparently included a gun being fired with 13 seconds left in the half. That incident caused a scattering of players, coaches and fans away from the side of the street where shots were fired.

The North-East team led, 20-13, when the game was called.

It was the second consecutive year that the Senior Bowl was not finished. A brawl of among players ended the 1990 game with a minute remaining at Long Beach Veterans Stadium.

Jerry Weiner, the game’s organizer and promoter, said security for the game included 18 Guardian Angels, two plainclothes off-duty police officers and several members of a semi-professional football team.

However, Marty Siegal, athletic director at Culver City High, disagrees with those security estimates and says Weiner should shoulder blame for the fracas.

“First of all, he did not have 18 Guardian Angels there,” Siegal said. “For Jerry Weiner to say that is a flat-out lie. He could not have had more than six. I found out later that there were two undercover cops there, guarding the cash box. He never contacted the Culver City Police Department. . . . The bottom line is that the football game would have been great, except he wanted to save a buck.”

Culver City Police Department spokesman Bill Burke said that although officers were sent to the scene, no report was filed. He was also unaware of any injuries.

“Our police talked to (Weiner),” Burke said. “He said he had his own people and would take care of (security) at the game. . . . We did not have any off-duty officers there. I read that there may have been some, but they were not Culver City officers.”

Siegal said that normally there are between seven and 10 police officers at Culver City football games at a cost of between $600 and $800.