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Last modified: Friday, August 3, 2007 1:19 AM EDT
Tweeter fight is big YouTube hit
BY DAVID LINTON SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
MANSFIELD - A large brawl purported to be in the parking lot at the Tweeter Center parking lot before the July 29 concert by the band 311 has made its way onto YouTube, and police lament it is blow-by-blow testimony that society is headed down the tube.
"It's one patron taking a video of a bunch of morons acting like morons," Mansfield Police Chief Arthur O'Neill said.
The four-minute video, apparently taken from a cell phone, shows about 15 to 20 young men in a crowd of about 60 in several small fights. Its starts with pushing and escalates into all-out fistfighting and kicking.
The cameraman or somebody with him shouts, "Hit him. Hit him."
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO, viewer discretion advised for violence and language
At one point in the video, the fighting ends and the crowd begins yelling and clapping before more fights break out.
One man has a bloody ear and blood on his neck and another wipes blood from his face with a white T-shirt. No one shown in the video appears to be seriously hurt.
The video is jumpy and the cameraman or someone with him yells at one point, "It's going on YouTube, baby."
YouTube is a popular video sharing Web site.
Viewers can post comments about the video. Some who posted comments claim to have been involved in the fight.
"I didn't even know anyone involved, I just jumped in because I was wasted and it was fun. Good times. Thank you for catching this on video," reads one post.
The mayhem ends before the video shows a police officer on a bicycle showing up, scattering the participants.
Most of the people in the video appear to be drinking from cups and merely watch the fighting. Some climb on top of cars to get a better view.
O'Neill said no one involved in the fight has made a complaint to police to initiate an investigation, and that although police arrived in a timely manner officers did not witness the fighting in order to make arrests.
The incident is typical of alcohol-fueled disorders not confined to Tweeter, but has occurred at other venues around the country, O'Neill said.
Referring to the problems at the country music festival at Gillette Stadium the same weekend in Foxboro, O'Neill said he agrees with other area chiefs that police are seeing more lack of respect for law enforcement.
"There is a societal breakdown going on," O'Neill said, adding that underage drinking is also a problem.
O'Neill said he was a police officer in the 1970s, when the drinking age was 18, but problems seem worse today.
"We're dealing with parents who don't have a clue" as to what their sons or daughters are doing at concerts, O'Neill said.
Some parents who show up at the police station to bail out their children are concerned and take appropriate disciplinary action with the child, the police chief said.
But others, O'Neill said, have threatened to sue and berate officers who have arrested their children.
For example, O'Neill said, one father who showed up Wednesday night to bail out his 17-year-old child, thrown out of the concert for drinking, and berated the lieutenant in charge. |