Author:
Matt
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Date Posted: 10:32:16 10/17/03 Fri
So, last night got out of hand, and I was there to witness it all firsthand. Before you read much more, click on this link. It's video from the local news station that I talked to after most of the mayham was all over, and they even included me in the video.
rtsp://necn.mirror-image.com/media/VIDEO/101703_kelly_9a.rm
Wow, so, time for the play-by-play. Bottom of the 11th and Sox fans are getting very nervous. We left Pedro in WAYYY too long, and blew the sizable lead in the 8th, and now everyone was more than a little worried that it wasn't going to end well. Then, the homerun. Honestly, I have no idea which Yankee even hit it. That wasn't the point. The entire bar of hundreds of people went momentarily silent, and then mass hysteria. Everyone was in disbelief, and more than a little wasted. As I headed towards the door I was passing grown men who had fallen to their knees sobbing uncontrolably. I heard one of them wailing "That's it, we're NEVER going to do this!!!" through his tears. Everyone filed out to the streets where tensions were starting to mount. Anyone in Yankees apparel was a target, so my friends quickly convinced the two Yankee fans in our group to get a cab and get the hell out of there. Cops were everywhere, and had been out there en masse throughout the entire game. They had mostly closed off all the roads for a few blocks around Fenway park from cars, no one was allowed to park anywhere nearby (after last week's riot where cars were flipped and set on fire) and I found out later that all the cabbies in the city had been strongly warned to avoid the area. The pool hall I was at was about a block from Fenway, so we all headed towards the bulk of the people up by the park.When we got there we found dozens and dozens of cops in riot gear complete with the bulletproof helmets with face shields, 3 foot long metal batons and body armor. Within a couple minutes of when I got there, things started to go crazy.
A student had kicked some little piece of chain off a fire hydrant right at the end of Yawkee way (one of the streets that surrounds Fenway) which just happened to be where about half the riot cops were. They flodded across the street, pinned him against a fense and were beating him with their batons. A newspaper photographer tried to get close to take some pictures, and another group of cops got him and started beating on him to get him to move down the street. He did stick around though, taking more pictures, and when I talked to him later he hadn't gotten beat up like that since 7th grade.
About this time there were several other small struggles breaking out all over the place. A TV cameraman apparently got to close to one of the cops as he was beating a student up, so the cops turned on him. Threw him to the ground, shoving him and going after him with the batons as well. Then, I got my first taste of the cops. I was standing in the middle of the street (a little tipsy) and screaming at the top of my lungs "What the fuk do you think you are doing?" and other such things at the cops. Apparently one of them didn't appreciate me vocalizing my opposition to this, so I got my own riot cop in my face, shoving me with his baton and pushing me down the street.
About 5 or 10 minutes after all this, they decided to have the motorcycle cops that were all over the place ride in formation down the middle of the street, where hundreds of people were standing and walking, to break of the group. They were riding right into people, and kids were trying to jump out of the way all over. As they got closer to me, I saw one of the riot cops who was walking with the motorcycles grab a student off the sidewalk, where we were all being told to go, and threw him in front of a motorcycle that was coming down the street. He barely got out of the way of that one and backed into another motorcycle. Then, the riot cop grabbed him again, about 10 others joined up, and they started beating him down as he fell backwards into the crowd. Another TV cameraman was too close this time, and they picked him up and threw him into the street, ripping his shirt and making him sprall out on the ground. Thankfully, the crowd had a healthy supply of drunken hippy college kids and wasted southies who were not about to stand there and just take it all. One girl tried her version of non-violent protest, sit in crap, and got brushed by a couple motorcycles who seemed to not care she was standing in their path.
Once we got to Kenmore Square (about a block and a half from Fenway) they had called in tons of other cops. The riot cops were making a line across the street. They were backed up my motorcycle cops, cops on horses and tons of others just standing around. The one riot cop who I saw constantly going after people really wigged out at this point and was leading charges of the riot cops against the crowd. You would hear some yelling and then see a few bundred people running away from a certain spot, then inevitably a single kid with about 5 cops on him, choking and dragging him down the street. As the situation had turned into a revolutionary war style battle, cops lined up shoulder to shoulder across the street and a huge rabble of revelers lined up about 50 feet down the road, someone decided to throw things. Someone chucked a partially full handle of vodka at the cops and yelled "How do you go home to your wife and children at night when you act like this!" at the cops. That set off another charge into the crowds (that was on that video link at the top), although the kids managed to get away. People were kicking over anything that would (or could) move on the sidewalks, including the giant concrete vases outside the new big hotel in this area. You could hear bottles breaking as they were thrown towards the cops. By this point, they had the prison van out waiting to arrest people, paddy wagons and cops with attack dogs. I was standing another block away from Kenmore (since they were slowly pushing us all back) when the state troopers got there. One drove right past my, and up onto the mid center median that runs down Commonwealth Ave. It is sort of like a little park that runs the whole length of the street. There were people standing all over the area, so the hasty addition of a police car meant more people had to dive out of the way to not get hit by a police vehicle. Oncce he was up on the median, he got the rottweiler out of the back, and started sic'ing it on people to get them to dispurse. Not long after this, i saw some kids throwing bricks and anything else they could get their hands on at a luxury apartment building's door (400 Comm. Ave - it was shown in that video clip). The place is still under construction or renovation, and they managed to break all three doors and a window or two around the doors. This is when I was stopped by the camera crew to tell them what I thought of the whole thing. After that, I managed to calmly walk through all the police barricades back towards Fenway to eventually get a cab home. By this time, they were largely done beating on people and had started to asses the damage.
All I can say is WOW. I was in shock the whole time it was going on because it was just soooo fucking crazy. This type of thing happens in LA, not Boston. The cops were out of control, and I honestly think they escalated the situation much higher than it would have been otherwise. Anyway, Sorry Rick - I apologize my story didn't involve people dancing on spilt corn, but I think it should make a pretty entertaining read for you all anyway.
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