Incidents at La Jolla Recreation Center raise safety questions

The assorted mischief that the Fourth of July weekend brought to La Jolla reportedly continued later in the month at the Recreation Center.

A recent post on social media described two incidents at or near the Rec Center. One told of someone putting fireworks or another device in the portable toilets in front of the center on Draper Avenue. The other described a man yelling at a 10-year-old girl “in a threatening and violent way.”

Neither incident was reported to Rec Center staff, the San Diego Police Department or the La Jolla Community Recreation Group, the advisory board for the Recreation Center, officials said.

During the first incident on or around July 12, “an explosion occurred” in one of the portable toilets as the woman who wrote the post was walking by with her children.

“All of our ears didn’t stop ringing for almost a day,” wrote the woman, who could not be reached for further comment. “Six kids on e-bikes had been hanging around … two to three minutes before and we suspect they had set off a firework inside.”

A week later, the woman wrote, her husband and 10-year-old daughter were at the Rec Center when they “passed a man sitting and reading at a table near the green playground by the tennis courts.” The man “began to scream and yell and point at them in a threatening and violent way. He was so loud that people on the tennis court came over and many stopped what they were doing. He was yelling accusations at my husband and daughter. Neither of them recognize[d] him.”

“In retrospect, my husband wished they called the police, but his primary focus was getting my rattled daughter out of there.”

“This is a community park and our only playground for children in The Village,” the woman concluded. “How can we as a community ensure it remains safe?”

SDPD Community Relations Officer Jessica Dishman maintained the La Jolla Recreation Center is safe.

“Generally [it] sees a low volume of police activity,” Dishman said. “While issues can occasionally arise in open public spaces, most city recreation centers, including La Jolla, remain safe and well-used by the community.”

Rec Center Director Nick Volpe said “nothing was brought to our attention” regarding the incidents the woman described.

Community Recreation Group President Anne Wiklund said “I think we have been really lucky that we haven’t heard of any incidents like that in the last couple of years.”

However, she acknowledged that two years ago, some Rec Center visitors reported harassment by teenage boys on electric bikes against young basketball players over several weeks.

In January 2023, a parent volunteer who coaches for her son’s basketball team of 5- to 7-year-olds said teen boys had ridden their bikes through the team’s afternoon practices, despite coaches and other adults asking them to stop. Each time, she said, the teens laughed at the adults, made rude gestures and took basketballs away from the younger children.

At the time, Volpe said safety concerns should be relayed first to Recreation Center staff onsite, though urgent issues warrant a call to 911 or the police non-emergency line.

Rosalia Castruita, who at the time was the San Diego Parks & Recreation Department’s area manager, added that the safety of Rec Center staff must be considered.

“We really can’t control what’s happening. We can’t stop fights,” Castruita said. “That’s why we get [police] involved.”