The scene is becoming familiar: A celebration of victory by thehome team turns into violence and looting.
Chicago was rocked by raucous celebrations, looting and arsonthat stretched into Monday morning after the Chicago Bulls clinchedtheir second consecutive National Basketball Associationchampionship.
The emotion from the Bulls' comeback against the Portland TrailBlazers poured into the city's streets as revelers drunk from acombination of alcohol and summerlike weather smashed storewindows, set stores on fire and jumped up and down on trapped cars.
Police were reluctant to detail the scope of the night'slawlessness, perhaps fearful of a reprise of the Los Angeles riottwo months ago. Some said broadcast reports of indiscriminatelooting there invited others to join the free-for-all.
'Where were the police? That's what happened in L.A.,' saidYvonne Finnie, director of youth programs for the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People.
Outnumbered police withdrew from Chicago's near North Sidenightclub district, where bands of mostly white revelers overturnedtwo taxis in the middle of the street and then celebrated byleaping onto the outstretched arms of the crowd.
'Police are increasingly aware they can't always meet problemshead-on,' said Patrick McAnaney, head of the criminology departmentat the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Experts on urban affairs said fans' behavior has becometypical, pointing to rioting that capped championship seasons inU.S. cities from Detroit to Pittsburgh. After the Bulls won theirfirst NBA championship, over the Lakers in Los Angeles last year,more than 100 people were arrested during celebrations in Chicago.
In Detroit, seven people died and widespread looting erupted in1990 celebrations after the Pistons won their second NBA title in arow. In 1984, 100,000 poured into the streets after the DetroitTigers won the World Series; one person died.
'When you celebrate something in America, you break a windowand grab something. When people have an excuse to loot, they loot,'Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley said in a news conference.
Some psychologists agree that violent celebrations are becomingmore common.
'Once you have the model set, it's almost like it's competitive-- like, our city destroyed more than your city,' said Dr. ThomasTutko, a professor of psychology at San Jose State College inCalifornia. 'The economy is going down the tubes, people are upsetpolitically, and once the cap is off the bottle, it all comes out.It triggers other emotions completely unrelated to what you begancelebrating, and the reservoir has to be drained.'
But the problem is not confined to the United States. InStockholm, Sweden, British soccer fans fought Swedish 'skinheads'and damaged property in their third straight night of violence atthe European championships.
The fighting flared after European Football Union PresidentLennart Johansson warned England it could lose the right to hostthe next tournament in 1996 if 'criminal hooligans' continued tomar the finals.
