troops=police

[ScS]

http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_233220802.html
---
PROVO, Utah About 90 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies broke up what they said was a rave party on public and private property in the Diamond Fork area of Spanish Fork canyon.

Utah County sheriff's Sergeant Darren Gilbert says they made about 60 arrests last night for weapons offenses, driving under the influence, underage drinking, drug possession and distribution, resisting arrest, assault on a police officer and disorderly conduct.

Officers found cocaine, Ecstasy, marijuana, mushrooms, alcohol and large amounts of drug paraphernalia.

Gilbert says a 17-year-old West Jordan girl was found overdosed on Ecstasy, and was treated and released to her parents.

He said there were more than 250 people at the party. That is the number for which the county requires a permit, bond and county commission approval. Gilbert said the party did not have that approval.


(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
---
check out this video:
http://homepage.mac.com/apexgrin/FileSharing2.html
http://homepage.mac.com/apexgrin/.Public/facism.wmv

this is some messed up shit. using troops to bust a party? whatever happened to the PO-leece?

[ScS]

http://chicago.tribe.net/thread/4dfcaae ... 4d&r=10659

Last night, I was booked to play a music event about an hour outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. The hype behind this show was huge, they presold 700 tickets and they expected up to 3,000 people total. The promoters did an amazing job with the show.

So, we got to the show around 11:15 or so and it was really cool. It was all outdoors, in a valley surrounded by huge mountains. They had an amazing light show flashing on to a mountain behind the site, the sound was booming, the crowd was about 1500 people thick and everything just seemed too good to be true really. Well...

At about 11:30 or so, I was standing behind the stage talking with someone when I noticed a helicopter pulling over one of the mountain tops. I jokingly said "Oh look, here comes big brother" to the person I was with. I wasn't far off.

The helicopter dipped lower and lower and started shining its lights on the crowd. I was kind of in awe and just sat and watched this thing circle us for a minute. As I looked back towards the crowd I saw a guy dressed in camoflauge walking by, toting an assault rifle. At this point, everyone was fully aware of what was going on . A few "troops" rushed the stage and cut the sound off and started yelling that everyone "get the fuck out of here or go to jail". This is where it got really sticky.

No one resisted. That's for sure. They had police dogs raiding the crowd of people and I saw a dog signal out a guy who obviously had some drugs on him. The soldiers attacked the guy (4 of them on 1), and kicked him a few times in the ribs and had their knees in his back and sides. As they were cuffing him, there was about 1000 kids trying to leave in the backdrop, peacefully. Next thing I know, A can of fucking TEAR GAS is launched into the crowd. People are running and screaming at this point. Girls are crying, guys are cussing... bad scene.

Now, this is all I saw with my own eyes, but I heard plenty of other accounts of the night. Now this isnt gossip I heard from some kids these are instances cited straight out of the promoters mouth..

- One of the promoters friends (a very small female) was attacked by one of the police dogs. As she struggled to get away from it, the police tackled her. 3 grown men proceeded to KICK HER IN THE STOMACH.

- The police confiscated 3 video tapes in total. People were trying to document what was happening out there. The police saw one guy filming and ran after him, tackled him and his camera fell, and luckily.. his friend grabbed it and ran and got away. priceless footage. That's not all though. Out of 1,500 people, there's sure to be more footage.

- The police were rounding up the staff of the party and the main promoter went up to them with the permit for the show and said "here, I have the permit." The police then said, "no you don't" and ripped the permit out of his hand. Then, they put an assault rifle to his forehead and said "get the fuck out of here right now."



Now.. let's get the facts straight here.

This event was 100% legal. They had every permit the city told them they needed. They had a 2 MILLION DOLLAR insurance policy for the event. They had liscenced security guards at the gates confiscating any alcohol or drugs found upon entry (yes, they searched every car on the way in). Oh, I suppose I should mention that they arrested all the security guards for possession.

Oh another interesting fact.. the police did not have a warrant. The owner of the land already has a lawsuit against the city for something similar. A few months ago, she rented her land for a party and the police raided that as well. And catch this, the police forced her to LEAVE HER OWN PERSONAL PROPERTY. That's right. They didnt arrest her, but made her leave her own property!!!

Don't get it twisted, this is all going down in probably THE most conservative state in the USA. And this is scary.. a gross violation of our civil liberties. The police wanted this party shut down, so they made it happen. Even though everything about this event was legal. The promoters spent over $ 20,000 on this show and did everything they had to to make it legit, only to have it taken away from them by a group of radicals with an agenda.

This was one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed in person. I can't even begin to describe how surreal it was. Helicopters, assault rifles, tear gas, camoflauge-wearing soldiers.... why? Was that really necessary?

This needs to be big news across the USofA. At least in our music scene..this could happen to any of us at any time. When we're losing the right to gather peacefully, we're also letting the police set a standard of what we can get away with. And I think that's BULLSHIT!

The system fucked up last night... They broke up an event that was 100% legal and they physically hurt a lot of people there at the same time. The promoters already have 6 lawsuits ready to file with their lawyers and the ACLU is already involved.

I'm sure some pictures (and hopefully some video) will surface soon.

[Pstehley]

WOW!!! Kinda reminds me of camp bisco like 3 years ago... we had fly overs by the cops and then on sunday, they barricaded us in for like 5 hrs... That's totally bunk... but given that they had a permit and what-not, I'm sure there will be a fairly large lawsuit involved. Or at least their should be.

fuck da police.. yo!

[Cleantone]

Holy shit!! Patriot Act?

(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

[Guest]

Folks share this story with people.

This is just so sad.

WTF has this country come to?

SWAT teams, assault rifles, dog, tear gas, taking people video cameras, smashing cameras and camcorders.

This is just way too much.

Everyday I get more and more discussed with our so called law enforcement and government.

[JEFFfromNC]

Sorry dat was me...

[tim]

i read some scary first hand accounts and saw some sick footage from this on another forum last night. i'll link it up when i get home tonight.

[Big Bob]

i have tried twice to download the video on this page:

http://chicago.tribe.net/thread/4dfcaae ... 4d&r=10659

but both times the download mysteriously cut out as someone started yelling at them to shut the music off.

[ScS]

yeah this is real fucked up.

here's a bunch of links to the video, news accounts, newspapers, etc.

http://www.utrave.org/showthread.php?t= ... ge=1&pp=10

sorry bob, seems like once the vid is up on a site, it comes down almost simultaneously.

[ScS]

That's totally bunk... but given that they had a permit and what-not, I'm sure there will be a fairly large lawsuit involved. Or at least their should be.

it's super bunk. supposedly, they had a permit from the health department but not from the county commissioner, since the rave was 250+ people and that is the cut-off for needing a permit. that's according to the utah newspaper, whose reliability on this story i fully question. this should be national news. since when does a SWAT team dress in combat fatigues and invade a civilian event? i think the local police could have handled this just as easily.

cleantone, this involves the RAVE act(the illicit anti-proliferation act of 2003), not the patriot act.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=g ... rave%20act

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Dance_party ... tah%2C_USA

news report:
http://www.4utah.com/local_news/local_h ... 88C45CE8A7

[tim]

the patriot act and the air of the current administration paved the way for the rave act though. funny how there was a case made on graffiti supporting biden for president when he was the sponsor of the rave act

scs- thanks for taking steps to wake people up.

[Pstehley]

ok... I'm not defending this.. so let's just say that from the start... but... according to everything I've read, they did not have all the necessary paperwork to host the festival. Ok, so just shut it down...

The scale of the police response was apparently due to the ineffectiveness of a smaller force used in the previous "Sequence Five" rave.

ok.. but using a swat team??? Having been to parties that have been broken up by cops, I'll be the first to say that I didn't think twice about dispersing. They told me to leave... ok... even if I'm tweeked..ya know...

I believe that the force used was excess, much like a current situation that is going on here in Pittsburgh. People were protesting at a army recruitment office. Apparently someone tried to smash a reporters video camera and the cops went at it. They tazered a woman for like 13 seconds because she was "resisting arrest" while already on the ground. Also, they were pepper spraying the crowd, which contained 2 small children. Now, I don't necessarily condone taking your children to an event like this, but come on, they were like 6 years old. Now I don't know that it was intentional, but just randomly spraying a crowd, where some people may just be bystanders is ridiculous.

Sources
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05233/557445.stm
Best description of the story from the crowd (kinda one sided.. but who are you gonna believe)
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/19793.php

[JEFFfromNC]

Funny, I know the woman in the second link who was bitten by the dog. She was from my home town of Sewickley.

The video of the woman on the ground being tasered is just disturbing.

[Pstehley]

yeah.. the sad thing about it.. is you go to like craigslist and everyone is laughing about it... not that I have never laughed at a tazer video... but this was totally uncalled for.... iron fist...

[ScS]

http://www.404audio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

"I was the main event organizer for "Versus II", I have been throwing parties in Utah for over 6 years now. I have done well over 75 parties, and NEVER in my life have witnessed anything so disrupting!

To clear up any questions any of you had for the event at hand, we DID have all proper permits to host the event on the property that we did. The Utah national guard is one of the agencies that raided the show, and they were the worst ones. That girl you see getting the shit beat out happens to be one of my good friends, keep in mind this girl does not drink, do drugs, or anything of the sort. All she is is a major DNB fan. We also have hand on eyewitnesses with writen statements stating thay had witnessed 2 of the ment in camo take a young intoxicated girl into one of the porto-potties during the main coarse of the raid while one of them stood outside a watch. In the mean time we presented the "Utah County Mass Gathering Permit" to the officer in charge and he said" No you do not have a permit for this and confiscated my folder w/ insurance policy, Permits, Business Licsense, and proof of permission to use property for the event.


THIS IS THE COUNTRY WE LIVE IN TODAY!!

IT'S ALL FUCKED!!!

We are in the mistd of organizing a protest party in the capital lawn of salt lake city utah to let our voiced be heard. We will keep all of you informed on what is going on.

I and the rest of my krew appreciate all of the support from everyone across the world, and we do want to let all of you know that we WILL NOT let this matter slide.

We have met with our attorneys and are filing a multi-million dollar class action law suite to accomidate the injuries, mental distress, and everything else that happened to these innocent party goers.

These events that happened are starting to be publicly released nation wide on news stations, national radio talk shows and so on and so forth.

The support from all of you is why! ....

Our Attorney has put together a subpoena being delivered tommorow for the actaul permit, and all approved applications. as soon as week get the certified documents we will post them..



P.S. Knick, we will have you back soon.

Respekt to all,

Jeremy
Versus II (SLC, UT.)"