SANTA CRUZ — Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly should be outraged.

It appears that someone in the liberal bastion of Santa Cruz doesn’t like the overtly conservative Fox News — imagine that! — or anyone dressing up like a Fox News reporter on Halloween, for that matter.

At an unofficial Halloween gathering of 15,000 people in downtown Santa Cruz on Friday night, police said, an assailant said, “I hate Fox News,” before grabbing the victim’s microphone prop. The assailant then made an obscene gesture with the prop, according to police, before attacking the victim with an aluminum tennis racket. The victim wasn’t injured but alerted police, who ran down the alleged attacker as he attempted to flee.

Police arrested 29-year-old Sean Kory, of Santa Cruz, on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. Kory was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail, Santa Cruz police Deputy Chief Steve Clark said in a news release.

Police weren’t immediately available to say whether Kory was also in costume — or why he was in possession of a tennis racket.

Halloween develops every year into a celebratory scene of frolic and activity. In the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. Saturday, Santa Cruz police arrested 32 people downtown and cited 45 more individuals.

Among those cited was a man dressed up as Edward Scissorhands, the character from the 1990 eponymous motion picture starring Johnny Depp. Police say the Santa Cruz version was seen trimming city trees.

Staff writer Sharon Noguchi contributed to this report.