Mid­night Mas in San Fer­nan­do was abrupt­ly shut down by po­lice just over an hour be­fore mid­night on Car­ni­val Mon­day, spark­ing out­rage among mas­quer­aders, band lead­ers and city of­fi­cials.

The event, one of the South’s sig­na­ture Car­ni­val at­trac­tions out­side of J’Ou­vert, had been sched­uled to end at 1 am. How­ev­er, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10.55 pm, mu­sic trucks were or­dered to cut the sound and bands were forced to dis­perse.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Har­ris took to so­cial me­dia short­ly af­ter, ex­press­ing his frus­tra­tion.