Officer injured as police, skateboarders square off at Dolores Park

An informal skateboarding competition turned disruptive, bloody and then confrontational Tuesday night at Dolores Park in San Francisco when police rushed in to break up the show and a crowd of nearly 400 faced off with them. The tension lasted for more than an hour as skaters shouted at the cops, one officer was injured and two police cruisers’ window were smashed. The trouble flared around 7 p.m., when first one, then two skateboarders wiped out so badly during the downhill street-riding competition on Dolores Street that ambulances were called to take the victims to a hospital. [...] the impromptu contest that had begun earlier in the evening had swelled to include hundreds of participants and onlookers lined up along the street to watch skateboarders whisk down the pavement, and residents were calling in to complain of disruption and an inability to use all of the street, said police spokeswoman Officer Grace Gatpandan. The competition is an annual event called “hill bombing,” and several skaters said they didn’t intend anyone to get hurt — but were proud that they mustered enough of a crowd to turn the street into their own territory for a time.