12 arrests, 5 guns seized after Antioch party bus chaos

A party bus ride that started in San Francisco ended abruptly in Antioch after unruly passengers went wild in a grocery store, resulting in the arrest of nearly a dozen people and the discovery of five loaded handguns, police said.

Officers were called at 11:40 p.m. Saturday to a Safeway on the 3300 block of Deer Valley Road, said Sgt. Tom Fuhrmann, an Antioch police spokesman, after the bus, which was carrying roughly 50 people, stopped and 20 to 30 of the passengers clambered off and started causing a ruckus in the store.

“They just started tearing up the store,” Fuhrmann said. “They were throwing stuff and knocking things over and a number of them grabbed food, drinks and alcohol and just ran out.”

The bus driver, who also runs the party bus company but was not identified, figured out what was going on and locked the door, leaving part of the group in the parking lot trying to get back on board — until police arrived, Fuhrmann said.

Once officers showed up, they detained the whole group and, using video footage from the store, arrested 11 people on suspicion of theft and one on suspicion of giving a false name, Fuhrmann said. Because the suspected crimes were all misdemeanors, the alleged rabble-rousers were cited and released.

A search of the bus turned up five loaded, hidden handguns, but it was impossible to associate a particular gun with a particular person, so no arrests were made in relation to the weapons, police said.

The driver told police that the group had been partying in San Francisco, but had requested to drive to Antioch to meet a friend. Fuhrmann said none of the people cited were residents of that city.