| Versus II (or: "guns versus music") |
[Aug. 23rd, 2005|01:45 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  enraged | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Pantera - Fucking Hostile | ] |
Saturday night our party with DJ Craze and Knick from Evol Intent was brutally raided by 90 officers from SWAT in full combat gear, assault rifles and all.
Video footage that made it out of the party - a 2 minute clip showing two of my friends Paul and Alisha being beaten and tased. The previously posted video didn't have sound. This one has audio and is a lot better quality. (They were charged with failure to obey and resisting arrest. tell me that that much force was justified?)
www.utrave.org is our local message board. Tons of information has been compiled and continues to be added from firsthand accounts and photo/video media that we recover slowly. Not that it matters, but I'm GI Joe Cake on there if you stopped by and wondered wtf that kid was going on about, heh.
Conflicting reports from the promoters against the Utah County Sherriff's department say either we had the permits, we had no permits, or we had SOME permits but not others.
The promoters, friends of mine, say they had all permits. The party was on private land, health department permits were obtained, a two million dollar insurance policy, emergency staff, the. freakin'. works. It's alleged that the permits were on hand at the event and upon being brought to the attention of the officers saying "We have permits!" they took them and said "no you don't." As I wasn't there due to being broke/having a bad feeling about the party, I can't substantiate that claim as of yet.
Local media has been a circus. The CBS affiliate wouldn't even talk to us because they said they had gotten all the information about the story they needed from the authorities. Until that video surfaced no one would talk to us or believe a word we said.
Ultimately the inevitable legal battle between the promoters and the County will come down to if they had the correct permits or not.
Ultimately the show of force that was used, ESPECIALLY given that the sherriff's department claims that at the bare minimum they knew about this 9 hours in advance, is completely unjustified. If they had plans of shutting it down in the first place WHY LET IT START AT ALL? Shut it down before they open the gates. This was an extremely well planned/orchestrated raid. Several of my friends claim to have seen morse code being flashed from opposite sides of the surrounding mountains, followed by a chopper coming over the hills, and then the NINETY fully armed (and I mean fully armed as you see in just as much video as we've recovered) stormed in and started busting the place up.
The official reports given by Utah County are full of holes and extremely self-serving, and Machiavellian, never stating exactly why they did what they did how they did, only "But look at what we got!" And I can tell you, it's not much. I've seen larger quantities at house parties. Local coverage in the papers quote Sherriff Tracy as saying they were trying to "send a message." Nothing about protecting and/or serving anyone's best interest has been mentioned.
The official report of the incident as stated by Utah County Sherriff's Office is located here, http://www.co.utah.ut.us/News/DeptNewsDetails.asp?ID=17759&WN_System=SHERIFF
All county jail bookings from that night are listed as public domain including the mugshots and charges here The third and sixth bookings, Paul and Alisha, are the ones you see on that tape. Tell me their charges match the treatment. Also along those lines, the Sherriff publicly stated to the news that no excessive force was used. No tasers or batons were employed according to Sherriff Tracy. It's strange really, because I can point out to you in that video exactly where you see a taser go off on Paul, and an officer swinging a baton down at him while he's subdued AFTER the taser goes off.
First-hand accounts of what happened are located here, http://www.utrave.org/showthread.php?t=20020.
local ABC affiliate's story
local CBS affiliate's story, video clip is good on this one. Sherriff saying he oversaw everything and no excessive force was used. (This channel has had the most absurd coverage of all of them. Making ridiculous statements on air like "This was a highly promoted drug party." and "They even had security on hand to make sure no one could bring in their OWN drugs." As evidence of our own surfaces and we gain support they've been updating their stories to look slightly less insane.)
local NBC affiliate story.
Other points of interest in this story. Having a mass gathering without a permit, if that IS the case, is a misdemeanor offense.
Police reports are stating they confiscated firearms. True, FROM THE LANDOWNERS. Not from anyone at the party.
Police reports keep beating the fact they found counterfeit money into the ground. From all of the footage of this smirking bastard showing off his evidence table, there was one (1) $20 bill that I could see. How many fake $20's do you think are floating around your local Wal*Mart right now?
Other people have probably reported this story a lot better than I have as there are now, thanks to the collective efforts of an incredibly active communit, currently articles up on utah.indymedia.org wikinews.org boingboing.net (mostly a linkback to the wikinews article) Mike Doughty's blog, infowars.com, drugpolicy.org, and several others. But all I can think about these last couple of days is what happened to my friends and what it means to America if we don't raise hell and fight back against it. |
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