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Utah rave incident and an interesting story about P&P...
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:24 pm
by Kvagga
I was browsing through the forum at Ishkur.com (I'm not a poster there, but I lurk every now and then) and read about this big (legal) rave being unfairly raided by the police in Utah recently. You can read some first hand accounts of it from this yet another forum:
http://utrave.org/showthread.php?t=20020
Pretty horrible, eh?
Anyway, on the subject of authorities using unnecessary and/or illegal means of shutting down raves in the states, Ishkur posted this (copied from here
http://www.ishkur.com/community/comment ... ad_id=1798) :
In England it happened much quicker: Not a year or two that the scene exploded into public consciousness were there violent crackdowns all over the place. One particular event in 1989 saw two brothers, Paul and Phil Hartnoll, attend their very first warehouse party. Halfway through the night the party itself was ransacked by gorilla-faced guards and armed riot squad enforcers. Most ravers escaped; the promoters and some of the DJs were beaten to a pulp. One of the brothers was knocked down to the ground and had his face pushed into the muddy floor for 45 minutes, with a belligerant knee locked straight into his back and a truncheon pressed against the back of his neck. He could just barely breathe out of the corner of his mouth.
Six months later, the brothers formed a musical act called Orbital.
Makes for a pretty interesting story I think, and a one I didn't know about.
Assuming it's true, I now respect the brothers even more for getting into the scene and by doing so, fighting back.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:47 pm
by stargurl
I read about the Utah fiasco on another board... crazy
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:32 pm
by Timbob
One of the brothers was knocked down to the ground and had his face pushed into the muddy floor for 45 minutes, with a belligerant knee locked straight into his back and a truncheon pressed against the back of his neck. He could just barely breathe out of the corner of his mouth.
45 minutes! that's crazy!
ugh, getting chills just thinking about that..
I'm getting claustrophobic from a turtleneck sweater already! think i would pass out if something like that happend!
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:55 pm
by Timbob
so i read the story about the versus rave..
can't really believe it.. it's just insane...
why would they do that?
i thought that America was the land of suing people.. where they in the mood to loose some money or something?
it's just bizarre.. why do people still think rave parties are illegal or wrong?
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:05 am
by davemacfrombath
I was at a free party in Bristol after the Ashton Court festival a couple of years ago, which was busted by about 40 police. The cops in Britain don't come with firearms but are dressed in riot gear - helmets, body armour, shields, batons - some have dogs, and they basically waded in with batons and dogs, smashing heads indiscriminately. Any rig they get near will either be smashed up or taken away. On this particular occasion they waited till about 4 AM when a lot of the crowd had gone - they're easily in timidated by a bunch of wasted hippies armed with stupid grins...
In the meantime, people are being burgled, attacked, raped, etc. in the city centre, whilst the police are arresting peoiple for having bad hair and scruffy clothes.
You couldn't make it up.
Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:26 am
by the PLA
Timbob wrote:
it's just bizarre.. why do people still think rave parties are illegal or wrong?
a lot of it is about the taxes I think. Cities make lots of money from liquor licenses, entertainment taxes & sales taxes from legal clubs, bars & concerts. They get zero from an underground party.
It's lost revenue to them. So they raid 'em & Smash up every ones gear kinda a' like the mob. $$$$ is all that really matters in this whole situation.
Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:40 pm
by Kvagga
a lot of it is about the taxes I think. Cities make lots of money from liquor licenses, entertainment taxes & sales taxes from legal clubs, bars & concerts. They get zero from an underground party.
The thing is, this particular rave was apparently 100% legal and had a bar, so I'd guess they paid their taxes like everyone else too.
Go here
http://www.music-versus-guns.org/ (an official site set-up because of the incident) for more information and check out the media section too for some video footage.