CROCKETT — A man was critically injured early Sunday when he fell some 50 feet from an elevated freeway off-ramp in the area where an illegal sideshow was happening, authorities said Monday.
Authorities still had not identified the man Monday or determined whether he was a participant in the sideshow or an observer.
California Highway Patrol Officer Sean Wilkenfeld said Monday about 100 vehicles and 300 participants and observers had packed the area of Pomona and Merchant streets around the on- and off-ramps to Interstate 80.
He said there had been similar sideshows previously in the same area “but nothing of this size.”
He said some people present were aiming laser beams at the CHP helicopter and others were setting off fireworks.
When California Highway Patrol officers, Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputies and other law enforcement officers arrived, the sideshow began breaking up.
It was still not known Monday what caused the man to fall onto a dirt field below one of the off-ramps. He was airlifted to a hospital after being treated at the scene by the Crockett-Carquinez Fire Department.
Multiple citations were issued, and at least one vehicle was towed, Wilkenfeld said.
Officials said they could not recall anyone being so badly injured in a Crockett sideshow.
That has not always been the case in sideshows, which started in Oakland decades ago and where those taking part speed and do various kinds of reckless driving stunts while cheered on by spectators. Oakland has seen killings, shootings, fatal wrecks and other violence at sideshows and some cities in the East Bay also have seen violence.