British Invasion 2K6: 1 Year Later

It was one year ago yesterday that the British Invasion 2K6 riot occured. Punks made their stand against neo-Nazi skinheads who were at the show causing trouble. One Nazi was stabbed, which led to the police being called, who responded by teargassing the inside of the venue without warning even though no violence was going on inside. The violence escalated from there. Numerous videos of the riot have been placed on YouTube, where they remain to this day. Many of the concertgoers who were gassed were innocent bystanders, some as young as 9 years old. Over 200 piggies were called in to quell the riot, and many people who were driven to the venue by their parents were forced out of the venue into downtown San Bernardino. $60.00 down the drain! Because of the waste of money and the brutality by the cops, the concertgoers became angry and trashed two cop cars and numerous businesses, two of them being Jack in the Box and Carl's Jr. The riot cost $500,000 in damage, four cops were injured, two concertgoers (one of them being the stabbing victim) were hospitalized, and dozens more were arrested. Local news stations had an anti-punk bias, which resulted in emails being sent to them in an attempt to explain what really happened from the concertgoers perspective. The concert was set to feature bands such as The Adicts, GBH, Vice Squad, and Broken Bones, the latter whose set ended somewhere in the middle when the teargas started flying. As I write this, look back, and reflect, my only regret was that I wasn't there to join in the carnage. I only have the YouTube videos to go on. I'm not an advocate of trashing local businesses, but you'd be ticked off too if you were at a punk concert and some Nazi boneheads decided to cause trouble and then the police came over and teargassed the place without warning.