The scene at Qualcomm Stadium is loud and booze-soaked, but you’d be hard-pressed to guess you were at the NFL’s most belligerent stadium for its most belligerent affair of the year.  Earlier this year, the Washington Post for the first time compiled game-day arrest records from across the NFL. It arrived at a surprising conclusion: more people are arrested at San Diego Chargers games than anywhere else.  Since 2011, about 24 fans have been arrested at each Chargers home game, most in the NFL. That not only outpaces stadiums with more famously rambunctious crowds – Philadelphia arrests three fans per game, Oakland arrests 17 – but it dwarves the results at the league’s “safest” stadiums. Seattle, Chicago and Tampa Bay average less than one arrest per game over the last four years.  It’s a bit of a mystery. If Chargers fans have a reputation, it’s for their apathy, not their aggression.  The league has said it’s making a concerted effort to cut down on violence and drunkenness at games to make the game day atmosphere more family friendly.  That effort could be driving San Diego’s high arrest totals. It’s one of a handful of teams with a so-called zero-tolerance policy. New York and Pittsburgh have the same policy and also see high arrest totals per game, according to the Post’s study.  On Sunday, with the Chargers eliminated from playoff contention and a fresh batch of news reports swirling that they’re ready to relocate to Los Angeles, Qualcomm Stadium was overrun by Raiders fans, the team’s most hated rival.  Aside from charitably an even split between Chargers and Raiders fans, the stadium’s sprawling, 166-acre parking lot before Sunday’s game looked like any other pre-game NFL tailgate.  The most notable police presence was from transit cops making sure fans offloading from the light-rail station had paid their fare. Judging by smell, the most common legal infraction was from fans getting a head start on California’s recently approved Proposition 64, which will soon make it legal for adults to consume marijuana, though not in public.  But the Chargers couldn’t top the league’s arrest totals without their divisional rival from Oakland.  In 2011, the Chargers averaged 31 arrests per game; during week 10, with the Raiders in town, 69 fans were arrested. A year later the team arrested 34 fans a week; 60 got locked during the week 17 Raiders game. Arrests for Raiders games in San Diego were typical in 2013 and 2014.  “Obviously, we came to tailgate, so we’re drinking,” said Darren Curtis, a 54-year-old season ticket holder from Jamul who was giving food to a couple police officers who were patrolling the lot before the game.  Curtis said most of the people who get hassled by police are those who break house rules and bring glass bottles into the lot, he said.  But things can be different with Raiders games.  “In years past, we’ve seen things get hostile, but it’s been Raiders fans versus other Raiders fans,” Curtis said. “We saw one time 50 Raiders fans from two groups of people just beating on each other.”  Other Raiders fans said they were surprised to hear Qualcomm led the league in arrests. Compared to games they’ve been to in other stadiums, plus games in the Raiders’ home stadium, games in San Diego are neither more aggressive nor more heavily policed.  “It started changing a few years ago,” said Rod Lee, a 57-year-old Raiders fan from Northern California who flew into San Diego to go to the game with some of his Chargers-fan friends, like Lisa Sarmiento, from Orange County.  He said he was surveyed by NFL representatives at a game about three years ago, asking him if he was turned off by the aggressive atmosphere.  “It used to be way worse, he said. “It’s the right thing to do.”  Sarmiento said stadium security in San Diego acts quick. There was a fight in front of her last year, but police were there almost immediately.  “You see it: The rowdy ones get kicked out,” she said.  Lieutenant Scott Wahl, a spokesman for the San Diego police department who has worked Chargers games for years, said the team’s code of conduct policy has been critical.  “We don’t tolerate disruptive, belligerent behavior that usually coincides with alcohol consumption at a football game,” Wahl said. “The code of conduct policy enables us to eject people not just for fighting, but for inciting people to fight or for using profanity, which might not be the same rules of engagement if you’re just walking down the street. When you’re dealing with 50,000 to 70,000 fans in an emotionally charged environment, that groupthink changes the dynamic.”  That said, Wahl was shocked when he saw the Post’s results put Qualcomm Stadium at the top of the league – in part because other teams have the same zero-tolerance policy as the Chargers.  He thinks the number is inflated because the Chargers, unlike some other teams, responded to the Post’s request for public records with all enforcement contacts in and around the stadium, which not all teams did.  “Our numbers are totally inflated – they’re enforcement contacts, so they’re legitimate,” he said. “They’re not wrong.”  For instance, Wahl said SDPD reported every time they brought someone in for being drunk in public, even if they were just sent to detox for four hours and then released. “We call it an arrest, but in technical terms you’re detained until sober,” he said. Other teams may have only reported the times a drunken person also had a battery charge attached.  “I would imagine we’re all pretty close,” Wahl said. “I don’t think there’s that big of a disparity. The NFL doesn’t want stadiums to be so different. It wants consistency across the board.”  In 2013, fans took video of an altercation before a Chargers-Cowboys game in which a fan had a bottle broken over his heads. Wahl said that’s the biggest recent altercation; an Orange County man was later charged in the crime.  The Chargers’ league-leading arrest average is falling. While 24 fans have been arrested on average over the last four years, it’s been steadily falling the last two years. The team averaged 31 arrests in 2011, 34 arrests in 2012, 17 in 2013 and 16 in 2012.  For Nate and Jessica Johnson, two San Diego-based Raiders fans, the idea that Chargers stadium was especially rowdy didn’t sound quite right. They said their only interactions with Chargers fans so far had been playful razzing.  “We tossed a Chargers fan a beer and said ‘Here, you’re going to need it,” Jessica Johnson said, a few hours before the Raiders won, 19-16.
Andrew Keatts: A report shows the highest rate of game-day arrests at NFL stadiums isn’t in Philly or Oakland but in sunny San Diego. Can it be true?