One Manteca woman described it as a “war zone,” referring to the cacophony of illegal fireworks booming throughout the city until Tuesday.
“I was in my bedroom trying to sleep,” she said. “We live by the hospital and we could hear them going off from all over the neighborhoods. We have friends living near Jessie Street and Yosemite Avenue who were also complaining of the ongoing noise.”
It was the dogs who once again paid the price of the continuing illegal fireworks throughout the
community Tuesday night, she added, with one Shih Tzu actually crawling under the covers in its owner’s bed with another house dog taking refuge in the bath tub.
Another Manteca woman said that fireworks in her neighborhood northwest of Woodward Park on Purple Martin Lane saw residents lighting aerial fireworks and sending them into the night’s sky from their back yard.
“They were going off a week before,” she said, “what is going to happen on the Fourth – it happened!” she said. “My dog shakes all over – just trembles.  I am surprised many of those animals don’t have heart attacks because they are so stressed out,” she said.
Twenty-four administrative city code violations were issued to Manteca citizens, from an unmarked police car with an officer and firefighter making up the team, for shooting off aerial rockets and other
illegal fireworks along with two felonies being charged, the police and fire departments confirmed Wednesday morning. 
Ripon’s Lt. Steve Merchant said that his department had four incidents of illegal fireworks but two of them occurred on nights prior to the Fourth, he added. 
One was at the Park and Ride Recycling Center just east of the downtown, another on Santos Avenue and another on East Wand Drive. Three were Health and Safety violations and a 34-year-old male was arrested by officers at McDonalds on a charge of DUI. The fireworks violations will be forwarded to the
district attorney’s office.  Officers collectively released some 1,500 vehicles from the city fireworks display at Mistlin Park at the conclusion of the city’s show.
A drone was seen flying over a Ripon round-about between the freeway and the police department with its red light flashing but both fire and police said it was not part of their evening’s surveillance.
Meanwhile the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office conducted a five-night fireworks enforcement operation with a total of eight deputies and two sergeants assigned to the detail.  They received a total of 128 calls for service at their dispatch center on July Fourth. Fourteen citizens were contacted for having illegal fireworks with citations forwarded to the district attorney’s office. 
A total of 250 sets of illegal fireworks were confiscated, according to the Sheriff’s report. 
Over the five-day operation a total of 275 calls for service were dispatched with 24 cases referred to the district attorney with 391 fireworks located.
Sheriff’s public information officer Dave Konecny added that on July 3 shortly before 10 p.m. a fireworks-caused fire erupted near River and Mission roads in rural Stockton.