BALLYHOO IN SAN BERDOO!
Or… The “E” street shuffle….
Now if you were there you know your asking the same question. On the night of March 4th, 2006, I took my 2 kids and some of there friends to a concert called the British invasion at the Orange show fairgrounds in San Bernardino, CA. The tickets were a Christmas present And here is what I witnessed.
We arrived at about 6:30. The place was a large auditorium and I noticed it seemed pretty calm. People were just standing around. Now usually at a punk show there is a pit. My kids said there was a pit at the front but said it was "pretty lame". In the middle of the set for a band called ironically Broken Bones I was standing at the north east corner of the auditorium near the bathrooms. Both my kids and their friends were standing in the croud watching the show. I notice a boy about 9 years old there with his mom and dad. Suddenly I noticed the crowd moving towards me and realized something had happened, though I didn't know what. The pase picked up and within seconds everyone was running. People were asking "What happened?" and someone yelled "Teargas"! The momentum was pushing all of us out the south door into a fenced in asphalt area. I realized the hole time that my kids and their friends were in there. I tried to climb up on the fence to see if I could see my kids. I called one of their cell phones and they were trying to make their way out the same direction but some of the group were missing. People everywhere were choking and crying. Most of the group met at the south opening of this fenced area and no sooner did we find each other but a police helicopter came in directly above us and lobbed another teargas granade into the crowd. This started everyone running west along a pathway that led to the parking lot. I was yelling at my kids "Go!". When we came to the west end of the building we turned right to get to our car and by that time the helicoptor was 20 feet directly above us. I saw my kids and some other guys run over to a scuffle. A fight had broken out. A punker was beating this skinhead guy in the face with a pole from a sign. He was poking him in the face! The skinhead guy was on the ground and unconsious. Both of my sons and their friends went over and pulled the guy with the pole off and tried to talk to the guy on the grond but got no responce. Just then a cop came over and my son said that this guy had just been jumped and asked for some help but the cop just screamed in his face "I...Don't...care!!!!Get him out of here!!!!" My son and some other kids carried the guy over by the chainlink fence on the west side of the building an laid him down. They tried talking to him and he regained consiousness. They were asking his name and he gave them 3 different names. My son says he looked like he was missing his eye and I could see that his whole face was covered in blood. Another cop came over and asked if we could move him a little further away and we explained that we had called 911. He said "Emergency vehichles won't come in until the area is safe, can you get a car in to take him to the hospital?, because these other cops over here are getting crazy" and he pointed to the other cops. He, by himself, seemed to be trying to help us and my son's girlfriend ran to get her car. At this time I realized that my youngest son who had been right near us was missing. I kept looking around and calling out for him. Just then the injured guy said, "I'm ok." (he wasn't) and my son and another guy helped him up. I was still looking around for my younger son and getting pretty scared. The injured guy who's name we never found out was walking away with the other guy who was helping and my oldest son said "give me your hand we're getting outta here.!" The helicoptor was still right over us and as we started walking people started throughing bottles at the police. My son and I started running and spotted his girlfriend driving her car back to where we had just left. We called out to her and she stopped and said that my youngest son and 2 of the group had gone across the street to the Jack In The Box. Now we had to find our car and menuver it through traffic out of the lot and across the street. As I approched the exit gate I saw fires burning in the street to the west, fire trucks and numerous cop cars blocking the road to the west, which is where I had to turn to pick up my son. I could see the Jack In The Box and I asked the cop at the driveway if we were "blocked left" and he yelled at me to "Get outta here!" so I had to turn right which I did. I made a u-turn in a parking lot containing 3 cop cars and pulled back west to the Jack In The Box. When I pulled in there were kids every where in the parking lot. But no sign of my youngest son. The windows had been brocken and it was abandoned. As we passed the front window someone through something through it and it exploded next to our car. I pulled out of the parking lot and turned right going north up "E" street, knowing not where to go. I was terrified and crying thinking that my youngest son was lost somewhere in this mess and maybe had been beaten up. The terror that was running through my mind was of the police. I know that many of them hate kids and will do anything they want to them. My oldest son was crying saying that the cop just told him "I don't Care!!!" after watching this kid get beat up and his eye poked out. And I wanted to ask for help looking for my son but they would have never helped. They had shotguns drawn. But then, I only drove half a block and there he was with the other two kids. I got them in the car and got my oldest son's girlfriend on the phone and told her not to go near "E" street but take Arrowhead north and then meet us at the courthouse.
Now I ask you, what in Gods name makes them lobbed teargas into a crowded building? After we got home one of the kids said he was inside on the north side of the building at the time the first grenade was dropped and it rolled over and hit someones foot. Aren't they instructed in training not to send that into an indoor ocupied space. These were inoccent people and they did deliberatley. Teargas and pepper gas is combined with CS gas which if you get a good wiff of it it can sto your haert! Oh, and it is also linked to cancer and birth defects, well we won't worry about that one. And why does this cop who yelled at my son not care???!!!! Can he watch someone be beaten so badley and not care???!!! Isn't that what we pay these guys for??!!! These bungling maniacal idiots caused a riot!! They caused it!!! I happened to be there with my kids and see it first hand. Plenty of the kids were dropped off there by trusting parents who thought blindley that they could leave there kids safely with some other "adults". These were pushed out to the street with nowhere to go but to wait for rides. Imagine their parents recievng a phone call saying "Mom! You gotta come and get me now...there's a riot!!!"
The word is that there was a stabbing on the north side of the building near the courtyard entrance, and that the police could not dispurse he croud around the scene. I tell you it's realy sad that some jerk had to bring a knife to something that should have been a good time for all and dicide to stab someone. I hope he's in jail! And I hope the victim of this stupid and cowardly crime will recover, whoever that unfortunate person is. The same hope goes out to the guy that may have lost his eye. I hope he didn't. But I'll tell you this, the police took a terrible situation and did there dambedest to turn it into a war. There was no need to send a teargas grenade into a crowded building filled with lots of inocent people, most of whom are minors, who are just standing around. Don't people have the right to go to a show and feel safe? Talk about your civil liberties being violated! Thanks guys...real macho. Strike up another one for the dumbasses!
Beth Wessels
bethdraper2000@yahoo.com
