San Francisco Hill Bomb moves to Telegraph Hill under heavy police presence

Telegraph Hill turned into San Francisco’s newest pressure point Sunday as officers ringed the steep streets for the annual Hill Bomb, a skate race the city has spent years trying, and failing, to contain.

The event moved from Dolores Park after the city installed speed bumps there to discourage riders, pushing the gathering to a new neighborhood but not ending the conflict around it. Organizers said the crowd looked smaller than the police deployment and described the scene as more controlled than in past years.

That shift goes to the heart of San Francisco’s problem: the city has not found a durable way to manage a large, unsanctioned event that draws skaters, spectators and vendors, yet also creates obvious public-safety and neighborhood tensions. Organizers and participants said they want a sanctioned place to gather legally and safely rather than repeat the same cycle of confrontation with police.

The Hill Bomb’s appeal remains part spectacle, part community ritual. Organizers said people come from around the world for the thrill, and participants described the day as exciting whether riders fell, slid out or made it all the way down. Sponsored merchandise and skateboard giveaways added another layer, showing how the event has become a recognizable cultural moment even without city approval.

The stakes are not theoretical. City police materials say previous Hill Bomb events have involved injuries ranging from minor to severe, broken bones, head injuries, blocked access for paramedics, a cyclist killed in 2020 after colliding with a skateboarder, and a 2022 event that included a sideshow and stabbing. The city’s own juvenile-arrest data says the spike in July 2023 arrests stemmed from 83 juvenile arrests at the Dolores Park Hill Bomb, 81 of which were counseled and closed.

That 2023 confrontation remains central to the city’s response. At the July 8, 2023 Dolores Park Hill Bomb, police said they arrested or cited more than 100 people, including 81 juveniles and 32 adults. A class-action civil rights lawsuit followed, and roughly 53 members of the public later commented at a Police Commission meeting about the incident. City records also showed a flood of competing emails, with some residents praising police for restoring order and others calling the response excessive and confrontational.

The pattern continued in 2024, when police barricaded Dolores Street and skaters shifted to Church Street next to Dolores Park. Later that year, a city-connected sanctioned version was associated with Twin Peaks, a sign that officials understand the need for a safer alternative even as they keep confronting the same basic problem: without a legal venue, San Francisco keeps moving the risk from one hill to the next.