San Diego prepares for lawless Raiders

SAN DIEGO — He turned his back, so he never saw it coming. By then, Daniel Napier was lying on the concrete aisle, two Raiders fans pinning him to the ground. One pounded away with his fist, cracking the bones above Napier's eye.

The other pulled out a knife, sliding the blade deep into Napier's side until a crimson pool formed on the concrete steps at Qualcomm Stadium. And as the ambulance sped away, whisking him past the parking-lot tailgates and out onto the highway, Napier watched the medics scramble around him and wondered if he was about to die.

The doctors thought so.

"In the hospital, they told him if the knife blade was an inch bigger he wouldn't be with us," said Napier's attorney, Ken Sobel. "He was lucky; it came very close to an artery."

Then the lawyer laughed.

"And over a football game. Can you believe that?"

This is what it has become around here when the Raiders come to town. A football game is no longer a football game but a frantic ambulance race for survival. The fans come early, filling the streets and parking lots with the grumble of motorcycles and the thumping of an angry beat — it must be like the old California days when the Hells Angels came roaring into town.

Fists fly, bottles crash and before anyone can stop it, the blood is flowing again.

"We routinely make more arrests at Raiders-Charger games than any other football game," said Dave Cohen, a spokesman for the San Diego Police.

Which is why this squeaky Osmond-clean city is shivering at the news that Oakland will be playing in Super Bowl XXXVII. The history of Raiders fans in San Diego has not been good. They're still talking about the time a Raiders fan bit off the ear of a Chargers fan in an Ocean Beach bar seven years ago.

"These Raider fans are in a class by themselves; they don't have any," Sobel said.

He tells the story of Daniel Napier because Napier never has. While Napier has recovered from the attack, it nonetheless left a scar far deeper than the one above his abdomen. Napier had to undergo extensive counseling and eventually wound up leaving the La Mesa community where he lived at the time of the stabbing. Once casual friends, Sobel and Napier rarely see each other these days.

"Things didn't go very well for Dan after that," Sobel said.

The banter in the stands at the Chargers-Raiders game of Oct. 29, 2000, started innocently enough. A couple of Raiders fans shouted some things. Napier — a large, balding man wearing the shirt of a youth-football team he coached — shouted back. The men called him fat, began to curse him and made obscene gestures.

At some point in the afternoon, Napier, who was with his girlfriend and another woman, blew a kiss at the men. By the end of the day, he was lying in the emergency room.

A few months later, the man with a knife — Luis Fernando Uribe from the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk — was sentenced to five years in prison for aggravated assault. His accomplice, Dan Garcia, received probation. And San Diego got something it never thought it would see — a man nearly stabbed to death over a football game.

"I used to be a season-ticket holder for the Chargers," Sobel said. "But several years ago, I started giving away the tickets to the Raiders games. I did take my 8-year-old son to an Oakland game with me once, and it was just too rough. There's a lot of bad language, a lot of hand gestures and foul-mouthed people. It's a bad situation for families and people with kids."

Now with the Raiders assured of the trip here, hysteria is beginning to rise. Last Friday, the local paper printed a story on its front page warning readers of the bands of marauders who will soon fill the sidewalks here. It warned of people who "like to don Gothic makeup, wield phony swords, smear fake blood on their faces and wear chains and leather." It said downtown businesses and residents "have reason to be afraid."

And if you think about Daniel Napier, they probably do. This is, after all, a city of power-washed sidewalks that has been spending weeks and millions of dollars scrubbing away every piece of stray graffiti with steel wool lest anyone from the outside think this anything but paradise. And as late as yesterday afternoon, police and community support groups were trying to downplay a Raiders invasion.

"I think there is just a small element of their fans that cause trouble," said Sal Giametta of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau.

If only that were true. Somewhere along the line, the Raiders changed. They stopped being the team of blue-collar Oakland and turned into the poster children for thuggery. Most point to the team's move to Los Angeles in the early 1980s. Instantly, the Raiders were the team of L.A.'s gangs, playing more and more to an old, lawless image.

"The Raiders used to have fans who gave the team pride," said Kevin Haughian, an owner of minor-league baseball teams who lives in Central California and is a longtime Raiders fan. "I think that changed in L.A. They developed this thug mentality, and unfortunately the (L.A.) Coliseum and the Raiders didn't do much to stop it.

"I went to one Raider game after they moved back to Oakland, and I would hesitate to go back. I don't think it's a real fan-friendly atmosphere anymore. And while I don't think the Raiders have encouraged this mentality, I don't think they've done much to discourage it either."

After all, hard sells.

And the Raiders still sell it as good as anybody. So the beatings go on, and San Diego will undoubtedly be under siege by the invaders from the north. The skull and crossbones will fly all over town this week.

"You know, I don't think anybody should be concerned about it at all," Sobel said. "I hope they do come down here and spend their money — if they have it to spend. The San Diego jail is big enough to hold them all."

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com.