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41 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
41 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
My tale of police brutality happened at a Grateful Dead show in
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Foxboro, Mass in July of 1989. Sure, lots of people get busted at Dead
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shows, and most of them deserve it. I deserved it too.
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We'll begin outside of Sullivan Stadium about an hour before the
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show. I was with my friend, her father, and a big guy named Dan who
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still is a good friend, and is what you would call a "gentle giant"
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We're walking in, sipping beers, when all of a sudden Danny pulls out
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a bottle of Jagermeister. We looked at each other, and proceeded to
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basically chug the bottle down in about 20 minutes.
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It's just about showtime when the buzz kicks in. Danny starts
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stumbling, and before I know what's going on, I'm the one holding him
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up. He's about 6'5", 250, and it was no easy task, in my state.
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Anyway, we get him sobered up just as we hear the show beginning
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inside, with an accompanying roar from the sold-out crowd. We gave
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our tickets, put the stubs in our pockets, and started running for the
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gate.
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Next thing I knew, I was face down on the concrete. I lashed back
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instinctively, and was rewarded with a rude slam to the pavement.
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Danny's no where to be seen.
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The guy says, "police, motherfucker!!" as he puts on some plastic
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handcuffs, and then he searches my pockets. He finds the ticket stub,
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holds it up to me, and says "oh, gee, this guy actually had a ticket" to
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his cop partner. He then tossed it away, and hauled me to thealready-
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crowded police van.
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Turns out just as I started running in, some people outside the gate
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broke down a fence, and people were pouring in. Wrong place, wrong
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time i guess.
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At the station, they strung the 165 or so Deadheads they had arrested
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for various offences along a pole in the station garage, and made us wait
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for about three hours to get processed. As we we standing there, cops
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were coming in with confiscated barrels full of beers and sodas, with
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shit-eating grins on their faces. one guy actually picked up a cold soda,
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opened it, and then turned to us and said "boy, you guys must be pretty
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thirsty by now", and then took a long indulgent gulp right in front of us.
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Like I said before, loads of people get arrested at Dead shows, and it's
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one of a cop's favorite places to do their duty. My experience just struck
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me as so incredibly sadistic the way the cops did it all. They were so
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proud of themselves, high-fiving each other and exchanging
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congratulations for a job well done.
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Definitely a learning experience though.
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