SWAT team breaks up rowdy party at vacant Bay Area house

SAN JOSE -- A SWAT team was sent to break up a rowdy, out-of-hand party at a vacant East San Jose home early Saturday when arriving officers found revelers running through the neighborhood and throwing bottles at police.

According to San Jose police spokesman Officer Albert Morales, police were called to the 1500 block of Mt. Shasta Drive in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood around 1:35 a.m. on reports that 20 to 30 people were "fighting and possibly intoxicated."

The youths were "yelling and screaming and ... rioting," neighbor Oscar Reyes told KGO-7.

Morales said that when officers got there, several people ran away in different directions, some heading back into the house.

"Officers set up a perimeter around the residence when people began to jump fences into the backyards of surrounding homes," Morales said. "Loud noises were heard and bottles were thrown in the direction of officers."

When officers learned the home was being renovated and the homeowner had not given anyone permission to be in the residence, the SWAT team was called in to search and secure the home.

"All occupants had fled out the back of the house and jumped over fences," Morales said. "The damage was documented and several people were detained and questioned."

No injuries were reported, and further details were not available on Sunday.

Neighbors were alarmed by the size of the party and behavior of those who attended.

"This one just blew up, because nobody lives here," said neighbor Erwin Villena. "They're not going to respect property. They just trashed it."

Villena, who lives next door, said there are often parties on weekends that can be heard around the neighborhood, "but they usually shut it down around 11 or 12."

Villena slept through the action but had spoken with the property owner when she came by Saturday to inspect the damages, which included broken windows and fence slats broken through neighboring yards.

She had told him that authorities suspected the partyers had found out the home was vacant by looking at online real estate listings and targeted it to use for clandestine festivities.

"She didn't know anything was going on there until she got a phone call in the middle of the night, telling her that someone had broken into the home," Villena said.

Aldo Gonzalez, a real estate agent who was showing a home on the same block on Sunday, said he hadn't heard of such things happening in San Jose although there were incidents in the Central Valley in the height of the recession.

"That was going on in the midst of the downturn, when there were a lot of vacant homes out there," he said. "People would break in, and they'd also strip out all the copper."