Arrests at unsanctioned Deltopia festival rise for fourth consecutive year
Arrests at Santa Barbara's annual unsanctioned Deltopia street party rose for the fourth straight year this weekend, more than doubling the number of arrests from 2024, authorities said.
Isla Vista's weekend-long Deltopia party, which draws thousands of local college students to raucous festivities near the beach, has seen arrests and citations grow each year since 2021, according to stats released by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office.
This year, 84 people were arrested and 485 people were given citations. In 2024, there were 32 arrests and 254 citations. The year before that there were 23 arrests and 151 citations.
While Friday night was fairly calm, the activities of the weekend ramped up on Saturday, according to the sheriff's office.
'Saturday saw a significant increase in both crowd size and emergency medical calls, most of which were related to alcohol intoxication,' the office said in a statement released Monday. 'Deputies and officers coordinated with fire and medical teams, using pre-planned rescue units to respond to calls and clear roads in densely packed areas, ensuring swift access for ambulances. Thankfully, there were no reported fatalities from cliff falls or fentanyl overdoses. There were no injuries to law enforcement officials or uses of force.'
The most serious arrest last weekend came when officers stopped a group of people on Saturday morning on Marketplace Drive as the group headed toward Deltopia. One of the members of the group was in possession of a loaded gun, the sheriff's office said.
Officials also arrested six as part of a monthlong investigation into a conspiracy to violate a festival ordinance. Authorities made the arrest at a house where there was a paid party with tickets sold on a ticketing platform.
The sheriff's office did note that no one died this year. There were no fentanyl overdoses and no cliffside falls.
In 2023, a junior at UC Santa Barbara died of a fentanyl overdose at the festival and more than a decade ago a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student fell off a cliff and died.
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A Cal Poly English professor facing suspension over two Pro-Palestine protests last year testified Tuesday at a tense hearing on campus. Shanae Aurora Martinez, who uses they/them pronouns, joined a January 2024 protest outside the Cal Poly Recreation Center that ended in a violent clash between police and demonstrators. Then, in May 2024, Martinez was present at another Pro-Palestine protest at the California Boulevard entrance to campus, where they communicated with police officers and protesters during the demonstration and resulting arrests. The university alleged that Martinez's behavior at the protests created an unsafe environment and violated the California Education Code of Conduct for 'unprofessional conduct,' according to a Feb. 14 notice of pending disciplinary action mailed to Martinez. The letter recommended that Martinez be suspended for two quarters without pay for their conduct. 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'I am here today not only to defend myself against these accusations that I do not respect my colleagues, I do not care about community, that I am somehow the mastermind of these protests — but rather to defend free speech in this highly repressive political context, especially when that speech calls out genocide,' Martinez said in their opening statement. A three-person Faculty Hearing Committee reviewed the case on Tuesday, and the members must recommend an outcome for Martinez's case within 14 days of the hearing. President Jeffrey Armstrong will then make the final decision. The committee included Cal Poly professors Samantha Gill, Gregory Schwartz and Pasha Tabatabai, with Crow White as the alternate member. The classroom filled with Martinez's family, friends, colleagues and students. Meanwhile, six police officers were stationed outside of the classroom in the hallway. Aloisio kicked off his presentation with video footage of the January protest. On Jan. 23, 2024, about 25 people gathered outside the Rec Center to protest defense companies recruiting at Cal Poly's Winter Career Fair. The demonstrators urged the university to take a stance against Israel's military tactics in Gaza, which they called genocide. Aloisio showed police body camera footage of about seven protesters carrying 5-foot-tall plywood shields, which they used to push the metal barricades into police officers guarding the Rec Center. Other protesters, including Martinez, then joined the shield bearers to push on the barricades. The police report said the protesters pushed the barricades first. Martinez, however, said the police officers were the first to pick up the barricades and march them into the crowd in an apparent attempt to push the demonstrators back. Martinez pushed on the barricades to defend the area the students were protesting in and protect them from the police, they said. 'It felt very volatile. 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'She was concerned students would be harmed by the barricades, and so applied force to the barriers, not to act in violence, but to act in defense of her students,' Kil said. Martinez was not arrested at the protest, but on March 4, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office charged them with battery of a police officer. Instead of going to jail or paying a fine, Martinez is set to receive diversion for the battery charge — meaning they will be placed on probation, perform community service and eventually have the charge dismissed, they said. The second witness was Maren Hufton, Cal Poly's associate vice president of civil rights, employee and labor compliance. The university appointed her to conduct 'a neutral, impartial and objective investigation' of Martinez's behavior at the two protests, she said. 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