💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › drugs › ALT.DRUGS › deadshow captured on 2020-10-31 at 23:09:23.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My tale of police brutality happened at a Grateful Dead show in Foxboro, Mass in July of 1989. Sure, lots of people get busted at Dead shows, and most of them deserve it. I deserved it too. We'll begin outside of Sullivan Stadium about an hour before the show. I was with my friend, her father, and a big guy named Dan who still is a good friend, and is what you would call a "gentle giant" We're walking in, sipping beers, when all of a sudden Danny pulls out a bottle of Jagermeister. We looked at each other, and proceeded to basically chug the bottle down in about 20 minutes. It's just about showtime when the buzz kicks in. Danny starts stumbling, and before I know what's going on, I'm the one holding him up. He's about 6'5", 250, and it was no easy task, in my state. Anyway, we get him sobered up just as we hear the show beginning inside, with an accompanying roar from the sold-out crowd. We gave our tickets, put the stubs in our pockets, and started running for the gate. Next thing I knew, I was face down on the concrete. I lashed back instinctively, and was rewarded with a rude slam to the pavement. Danny's no where to be seen. The guy says, "police, motherfucker!!" as he puts on some plastic handcuffs, and then he searches my pockets. He finds the ticket stub, holds it up to me, and says "oh, gee, this guy actually had a ticket" to his cop partner. He then tossed it away, and hauled me to thealready- crowded police van. Turns out just as I started running in, some people outside the gate broke down a fence, and people were pouring in. Wrong place, wrong time i guess. At the station, they strung the 165 or so Deadheads they had arrested for various offences along a pole in the station garage, and made us wait for about three hours to get processed. As we we standing there, cops were coming in with confiscated barrels full of beers and sodas, with shit-eating grins on their faces. one guy actually picked up a cold soda, opened it, and then turned to us and said "boy, you guys must be pretty thirsty by now", and then took a long indulgent gulp right in front of us. Like I said before, loads of people get arrested at Dead shows, and it's one of a cop's favorite places to do their duty. My experience just struck me as so incredibly sadistic the way the cops did it all. They were so proud of themselves, high-fiving each other and exchanging congratulations for a job well done. Definitely a learning experience though.