🚀 go-pugleaf

Funny, if the races were reversed, the PC crowd/establishment would be
all over the situation, demanding that it be treated as a "HATE
CRIME!, HATE CRIME!"...

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http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jul02/58065.asp

Youths beat festival patrons
Police dispute accounts of attacks as racially motivated
By TOM HELD and JAMES H. BURNETT III
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: July 10, 2002
A group of youths pummeled at least a half-dozen people leaving
Summerfest on Sunday night, in a series of attacks that witnesses
described as racially motivated.

Summerfest 
 
Milwaukee Police Chief Arthur Jones, however, said the attacks
appeared random.

Calls for police around Summerfest, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. that night,
confirm that a group of young men attacked people and trashed cars as
they moved from the Summerfest gate areas toward downtown.

Victims were punched, kicked and knocked to the ground by a group of
young men ranging in age from 14 to 20. Most of the victims were
white, based on the police reports and witness accounts, but included
a black youth who was attacked near the U.S. Bank tower Sunday night.

Jones confirmed that police investigated reports that a small group of
young black men accosted and assaulted people at the festival on two
nights.

"We dealt with it, and I believe we dealt with it appropriately. . . .
We did abate the situation," Jones said.

Several arrests were made as a result of the reported attacks, Jones
said.

Jones said he didn't think the victims were attacked because of their
color; on the contrary, the incidents appeared to be random.

"We have no reason to believe that it was in any way gang related,"
Jones said.

Racially motivated?
One of the victims, Justin Mooney, described his plight as "wrong
place, wrong time, wrong color."

Mooney, 17, said a group of eight to 12 young men attacked him and his
friend, Scott Riddle, as they walked with Riddle's mother, Diane,
along E. Michigan St., near N. Jefferson St.

Riddle said she noticed the group of young men as she and the two boys
walked along Michigan St. toward their car. One member of the group
shouted at them, "What are you looking at, white boy?' " Diane Riddle
said.

She, Mooney and her son continued to walk, but the young men attacked
moments later.

Mooney, who lives in Vernon Hills, a Chicago suburb, said the
attackers punched him from behind numerous times. His face was
swollen, his left ear was bleeding and his head was spotted with bumps
after the attack.

"It was shocking to me," Mooney said. "You're talking 10 guys left and
right, and finally Diane tried to cover me."

Riddle said her son, Scott, also 17, jumped over a low wall to escape
as three of the young men started punching him. She screamed at the
assailants to stop and pushed into the crowd and covered Mooney to
protect him from the blows.

In words stronger than the other witnesses', Riddle described the
attack as racially motivated.

"I just think this unprovoked assault was a hate crime against a white
kid, and everybody's afraid to say that," Riddle said.

Other attacks
Bryan Couillard said he watched a group of young men move west from
the parking area just off Harbor Drive as Summerfest was closing
Sunday night.

Couillard, 45, of Glendale, said a group of about eight to 12 young
men beat a white youth about 100 yards from the main gate. The victim
eventually ran, and the group of attackers scattered.

Walking toward his car, parked off St. Paul Ave., Couillard saw the
group attack at least two other men in a parking area and pummel
several others in a car stuck in traffic.

Jeremy Mor, 22, of Mequon described a similar scene as he walked out
the Summerfest north gate.

"All of a sudden, somebody jumped up and knocked out a white kid for
no reason," Mor said. "Then another person got punched and was
dropped."

Mor saw at least three people knocked to the ground within several
minutes as the crowd continued to flow away from the Summerfest gate.

Within the Summerfest grounds, Phillip Domagalski, 38, suffered a
broken nose and two ribs on the lakefront path Sunday night.

Domagalski, of West Allis, said he did not know the racial makeup of
the group that attacked him. All he remembers was walking with his
wife and friends, seeing a group of young people heading in his
direction, and his wife pulling him off the pavement.

"I assume everybody who went past me took a kick," Domagalski said.

Summerfest Executive Director Bo Black referred a reporter's questions
to festival security director Mike DeMarco.

DeMarco said his staff dealt with groups of youths fighting on the
festival grounds, around the games that were part of the midway, on
Thursday night and Sunday.

After the incidents on Thursday, DeMarco asked the carnival manager to
remove the games, and they were closed for the duration of the
festival.

Jerry Murphy, owner of the Murphy Bros. Expositions, said fights among
the group of people gathering in the area escalated on Thursday night.

"In any big crowd, you get an element that doesn't want to have fun;
they want to destroy things and raise havoc," Murphy said. "I think
that's what happened with that group of people that was there. They
wanted to fight."

DeMarco said the police moved additional officers into that area after
the unruly behavior Thursday night. There were no problems Friday or
Saturday, but additional fights broke out on Sunday, involving young
people gathering near the midway.

Overall, DeMarco said, the festival was successful and calm. Drug
arrests were up from the previous year, but the number of fights and
other incidents seemed to be slightly down from previous years, he
said.




Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 11, 2002.


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