Utah Rave shutdown by Authorities

[IpLaYwItLiGhTs]

read this on TA, thought I'd pass it on.

http://www.utrave.org/forumdisplay.php?f=6

Originally Posted by knick evl ntnt
Last night, I was booked to play an 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.. they even made slipmats with the flyers on them to promote in local shops.

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 **** 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 ****ing 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 candy raver, 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 **** 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 radical neo-con's 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 (edm as a whole)... 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 ****ed up last night... They broke up a party 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. I'll make sure to post them up here on 404, so you can see the Police State of America at work.

p.s. - there are more stories of police brutality that i'll post up later. gotta hit the airport soon. can't wait to get the **** out of this shit hole state.

[IpLaYwItLiGhTs]

footage - here

[ChEeZeBaLL]

damn this pisses me off. Get those videos out to the public. I hope this is on the news, although if it is they'll probably twist it to make it sound like the police were doing something good.

[JMax]

ok this is sad man.....

i feel sorry for you EDM fans of USA

i will not say more because this thread has the potential to turn into political debate.....

[THE TRUTH]

That is pretty ****ed up that they shut it down when it was a legal party, but I call bullshit on some of the details in that post until proven otherwise.

Regardless, looks like Utah has a pretty big lawsuit comming for shutting it down when they had the permits.

[THE TRUTH]

Also looks like things may have not been done right by the promoters:

It was incredibly cruel and un-called for what happened last night, but honestly, (and i know people are going to be upset with me saying this) why didn't the promoters finish getting the permits signed? all of it could have been avoided. what did they think was going happen? granted I don't think anyone would have ever thought that it was going to end up being that ****ed up, but it all could have been avoided if they would have had the permits signed...

[Sentinel]

OH crap. This is really bad. The video is a bit weak, but I believe what is written, and I fear this kind of thing will only get more common.

[HudsonHawk]

woa this is sick. s1 remind me not to go to raves in utah. Unbelievable... there is nothing for US Miliatray to do?

[NRG_Traxx]

****in bs

thats stupid & stupid

[Toasterman101]

Well if they were taking the alcohol and drugs at the entraces I can sypathize with the ravers (it was a responsible party then).

However when a member of the US armed forces tells you to get the hell otta there, you the f*ck do it with out a second look or word. Have some respect.

[ChEeZeBaLL]

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=96651

http://real.ksl.com/video/slc/0/5/502.ram

This type of thing makes me really not like cops. In the video, the reporter says it was on public and private land, and they show a clip of people running from cops. It probably got onto restricted grounds when people started running from the ****ing tear gas.

"someone gave officers a tip about the events location"

They try to make the thing sound real shady. It was posted all over the ****ing internet and there were flyers all over.

god damn it.

[ChArBrOiL]

So what's the problem.

[Smartco]

Sorry, but this is way beyond imagination for Dutch standards, when it comes to personal harassment...I think the US military sucks by taking action this way...is that war on drugs they have going still not ending?
Sad to hear people. I feel for you. Hope this will not lead to a total ban on House Parties or Open Air Raves....
Hold tight!

[Loic]

Counterfeit money? 17 year old kid ODing on Ecstacy? Sounds like total propaganda to me...

Did they or did they not have a permit?

[Ambiguity]

Actually it wasn't in SLC. It was in Spanish Fork, which is about 40-60 minutes south of SLC.

When I used to live there, we referred to that area as 'Happy Valley' because it is the most predominant Mormon area in all of Utah.

I'm not surprised that it happened. The news seemed to misrepresent it....though I expected that too. One reason I am out of that horrid place. No one move to Utah.

[byte]

Originally Posted by Smartco

Hope this will not lead to a total ban on House Parties or Open Air Raves....

Ha! It'll take more than the U.S. millitary to shut down rave culture. More like the end of the earth!

[XS-NRG]

Pretty crazy. Sounds like the story is a bit blown out of proportion though. I didn't really see mass chaos. I think there was probably a tip to the police about some dealers that were known to be going there. The police etc have to do their job and honestly if you've ever seen "Cops", the TV show, that vid was pretty tame compatitavely.

People look at this and think it's SOOO bad, yet you look at some war torn countries that are fighting for a belief and kill each other and suicide bomb one another. I'd say that's worse than a raid on a party that questions the fact if everything was finalized properly. There had to be a perfectly legit reason for this to all have happened too. The police/military/swat have to do what they have to do and when they go up against 1500-3000 people who knows what kind of riot or civil unrest could happen. From what I've seen in the US, when you're a cop, you don't **** around when it comes to subduing someone.

Personally I can see the sides of both groups here, the ravers and the police. Honestly, I'm pretty much looking right down the line with this one. There are always 2 sides of the coin and one side always gets blown way out of proportion so as to favour them and make them look innocent when in fact it could just as easily be the other way around.

[DJ Xenomorph]

I guess I should remove my "support our troops" magnet from my car huh?

Yeah it sounds pretty messed up, but you have to keep in mind that there might be some exaggerations to that guy's story. Whether there were or not, that sucks to have an event shut down like that when no one did anything wrong.

[Kaesar]

Even if it is exaggerated, there really is no need to pull the army with machine guns to shut down a rave. That's just seriously ****ed up. What were they afraid of? Candy kids with their glow-in-the-dark wands? Think of the resources they used just to shut down this party; helicopters. This was excessive force even without anybody being beaten up.

[Bitsablade]

The army with guns to close down a rave, thats b*llocks..............
Alright so the story sounds abit blown out of the water but put yourself in their shoes!

Do you honestly trust the police cos "They dont need a reason to close down that sh*t LEGIT OR NOT" !!

All it would have taken was 1/2 Cops to go down there and put a stop to that party....ive been to many Open air raves / car park raves etc etc and theres never any trouble when things get closed down which is rare they normally let us get on with it.............

Drug dealers, i didnt see the CIA there ...!?

NWA got it right "F*CK THA POLICE"

This is only the beginning of things to come.....................