Stakeout at a Dead show

[Kanada Kev]

This cop writes about stakeouts and about how being on detail at a Dead show was the BEST! (except for not being inside to enjoy the show :

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/cop/entries/2007/01/24/stakeouts_and_t.html

Come to think of it, police goobers rarely get to go on stakeouts. They stand out in a crowd. I had a detail once that involved mingling in the parking lot at a Grateful Dead concert at the old Omni. First of all, I was pissed off that my detail didn’t involve going inside where I could watch the show. But if you had to do an outside detail, a Dead concert was the best. The traveling troupes selling beads, tie dyes, little wooden things they claimed were trinkets but resembled pipes, and just about anything else handmade provided the best people watching you could get.

Something else they sold in the parking lot was the occasional acid. LSD was a popular high-school and college drug in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Most of it was blotter acid consisting of 100 hits on a ‘sheet.’ The hits were perforated cuts with a drop of the liquid on it. The paper was marked with a picture and the name usually corresponded with the picture. Some of you may remember Bart Simpson? That night however, I was only there to identify the guy that was supposed to meet our guy the following night up in north Fulton County. It was an easy detail. Unfortunately I didn’t count on the police goober factor.

I gave very specific instructions. Dress as far down as you have ever dressed. Body odor is okay and don’t worry about things like underwear. I made the mistake of not realizing that my partner that night came from the upper crust of fashionable Roswell where everything was color coordinated and dressing down meant wearing the old Gucci’s and the Hugo Boss Man-bag. I showed up ready to blend in and my partner showed up looking like a young Ricky Ricardo complete with a silk puffy shirt and leather vest. Three yuppies ran up and tried to order the prime rib.

[The Chameleon]

I can recall seeing undercover narcs at dead shows. They stuck out so bad. So easy to spot.

And the Omni in Atlanta always felt like a Police state. I can recall at one show there was a tank there to block off and area for crowd control.

[Kanada Kev]

You could spot most of the narcs so easy! It did get ugly in the later years where they were simply having "fun" harassing everyone

A TANK? Whoa ... that's nuts! I hope somebody got a bumpersticker on it .

Dawn Henlay:

Down at the show today,

I saw a Deadhead sticker on an army tank.

Little voice inside my head said,

"hide your dank, hide your dank"

[StoneMtn]

I dealt with cops on horseback using cattle-prods on all the heads in Landover, MD 1990.

Essentially, it appears that the police thought things were too quiet during one of the shows. It was Phil's birthday, and the only show I've ever been shut out of. During the show, the cops decided to ride through the crowd in the lot and cattle-prod people, including little hippie-chicks, presumably to start a riot. (If that wasn't their goal, then they managed to accomplish something they hadn't intended.)

I saw one guy opening his car door. The police gallopped up to him and said something. He yelled, "But it's my own car! I'm just trying to get into my car." At that point, he was basically surrounded, and I saw the billy-clubs get raised into the air and slammed down over and over. We were running for our lives at that point, and I never did see what happened to that poor fellow.

Idiots.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

...and that's the day you decided to become a lawyer and protect the rights of the unwashed spinning masses

[StoneMtn]

Actually, I still encourage the masses to wash. (I was always a very clean hippy, if I was ever a hippy at all.)

[Kanada Kev]

That sucks.

I remember getting hassled at the U of Michigan shows in '89 for vending. Had an undercover female cop with serious attitude. She didn't even tell me she was a cop and was the reason I looked at her oddly when she told open my backpack and give her the shirts. When she signalled that she was with the cops on horseback right beside them and all I caved-in.

I remember seeing one guy REALLY get hassled and I grabbed my camera to go over and start taking some pics (hopefully to deter the cops/undercovers from getting too rough). Maybe it worked. Then again, the could have easily grabbed me too and started clubbing the shit out of me too.

The added stress in some parking lots around shows sucks. Too bad that it's sometimes the law enforcement causing it, and other times stoopid fans.

[phishtaper]

ive always had short hair and occasionally am told I look like a cop. one day i was walking thru the lot before a dead show at the palace in auburn hills and a kid runs up to me and asks what kind of shoes im wearing. "airwalks", i tell him. he runs back to his buddies, "See! I told you! Cops dont wear airwalks!" moral of the story: cops dont wear airwalks.

an undercover cop car was trolling the lot before a phish show in hampton. it stopped suddenly when they heard that ever-popular "pfffffffttttttttt" sound and noticed the line-up and spent balloons. three, less-than-athletic cops tumbled out and ran after the sellers who scattered immediately. no luck, they got away. and so too did the evidence, when a couple of passers-by simply grabbed the tank and left with it before the cops returned. moral of the story: have at least one cop stay with the tank.

[Booche]

You still got those 'certain' pics DaveyBoy?

I cant believe no one approached you as you were taking them.

[StoneMtn]

I once saw a tank sitting on the ground, disguised by a guatemalan blanket. The cops were all standing around it saying to the crowd, "Come on, who owns it? Fine, then..." and they opened the valve to let the gas out. At that moment, 3 or 4 deadheads dove on the tank and started sucking on it, one after the other, as the cops kept pulling them off.

That was good comedy.

[Kanada Kev]

I remember being in Albany for a Dead show (or was it a Phish show) with another member of this board. We were getting our Kind in the indoor parking lot stairwell! The guy asked us if were cops, then demanded that he check down our shirts (to see if we were wearing our cop badges around our necks). Weird!

We started calling a buddy of mine "Narc" after seeing SCI/MMW in Troy, NY. We're scoping out the lot and getting primed and he's wearing his super clean bright yellow North Face jacket and his crewcut. So many people ran away from him when they saw him. Ended up that he was a puddle of goo by the end of it he got too high and had too many beers. Took a face-plant into the pavement just outside the hotel!

[Booche]

There is a perfect visual in my head StnMtn. Hilarious.

We got our pics taken with cops, for the hell of it, while we were completely blazed and 'holding'

That's pretty stupid but luckily they were likeable fellows.

[SevenSeasJim]

I once saw a tank sitting on the ground, disguised by a guatemalan blanket. The cops were all standing around it saying to the crowd, "Come on, who owns it? Fine, then..." and they opened the valve to let the gas out. At that moment, 3 or 4 deadheads dove on the tank and started sucking on it, one after the other, as the cops kept pulling them off.

That was good comedy.

My mind just envisioned a military tank being disguised by a guatemalan blanket and the cops playing dumb :grin:

[Davey Boy 2.0]

yeah i got a few stealth pix of some poor dumbass getting busted in Charlotte. His entire bus was painted in a marijuana leaf motif– who would ever think that the cops would take an interest in it?!?

hilarious stuff, mtnman

Edited January 24, 2007 by Guest
memories

[AD]

I once saw a tank sitting on the ground, disguised by a guatemalan blanket.

haha i still thought you were talking about the tank used for crowd control in a previous post... 'who the hell can camouflage a tank to look like a blanket?'

[MarcO]

Deadheads were always known for their subtlety.

[StoneMtn]

The tank was standing upright with a blanket wrapped around it and the nozzle sticking out the top. It was "disguised" as long as you didn't actually look at it.

[zero]

I came really really close to getting busted for acid at the second last Dead show at the Boston Gardens. It was just a mob scene in the 3 blocks surrounding the venue, didn't have a ticket- was flying home from my dad's wedding in Philly and passing through Boston and just chanced it. Anyways tickets were really hard to come by, ended up working a trade between one guy for MSG for this guys Boston and got a ticket in the process.

So I had a sixty of Bacardi from duty free because I'd actually already boarded my flight and disembarked to make the seat available for a waiver and catch the show. We drink in an alley, smoke some hash, oh me and this guy I barely knew from TO much older than me. Anyways we are about to go in the venue and pull over by the streetcar tracks and are breaking out a couple of hits and are just swarmed a moment after they're on our tongues. Just the cheesiest looking Baretta motherfucking Boston cops complete with lumberjackets and toques.

They pulled us into the subway entrance and we're under the cold flourescent and watching the streetscape wash by. They were all over him as he'd broken out the hits and established I was clean (swallowed the hit). This grown man had this look of total childlike fear as if his entire life was over in front of his eyes. Scary. They shook him up and down and up, he had these crazy sunshine hats with the leather backing which they seemed interested in too (just a cover up for the cash he was rolling with on tour- a social vending type thing). So they find a little bud and tell him if you have anything else you're fucked so he darts through his change pouch and pulls out a bit of hash on a dime. But they wanted the acid. They'd seen it after all. Finally it looks like we're out of the clear then they start going through scraps of paper they'd already checked and unfurl this bit of scrap paper and there they are: "Bingo" says the cop. "Bongo" says I.

Not going to the Dead show (right across the street), not going to Halifax, do not pass go, go directly to jail. Then the 'look the storms cleared moment'. The cops just say, I guess not wanting to deal with the fact that we're Canadian, "You're the luckiest sons of bitches ever". And we were on our way. Walked out the subway station doors and merged with the crowd into the venue.

Then we're in the venue and this guy turns to me with this maniacal look and opens this flat zipped pocket in his MEC hip pouch and fans what turned out to be $5000 canadian in cash. I sense that might have changed how the situation played out had they found it....

[paisley]

in 1990 when the grateful dead came to hamilton (something I couldn't even process until I had the tickets in my hand) I spent the afternoon of the first day at a buddy's well supplied apartment attempting various methods of gaining a grip on things... was horrified the Hamilton gaztapo force were going to break hearts (and faces) of the travelling love parade... eventually reasonably chilled, I embarked for the grounds looking to make sure the happy city visitors weren't being accosted

as I get a block from Copps (heh, name) I suddenly realize I have 2 beers in every pocket of my overcoat, along with most of every other thing you wouldn'nt want in a pocket as you approach a police line spanning a 4 lane street... I freeze staring down the obstacle... then, like upon the wings of angels, the strongest smelling cloud of herb hits me... 'they're not cooking shish-kabob over there at all!' I thought looking at the rising clouds of smoke, held my head high and strutted right in, all clinkey (right behind the guy who danced past with an open Rolling Rock in his hand)

deadhead smiles (and mastercards flashing in city hotels) won hamilton over pretty solidly... Copps was the biggest hotbox ever... New Kids on the Block played the day after 2 Dead shows and apperently the room was still strongly 'fragrant'

[StoneMtn]

I remember after those first Hamilton shows a cop being interviewed on the news, talking about the busts they had made. He commented that he'd never actually seen opium in real life before busting the one guy they found with it.

I think Dead shows may have been considered "continuing education seminars" for cops.

[paisley]

much like the audience, the officials often found themselves somewhat overwhelmed

seemed the hamilton cops were out from a certain time of night for a couple of hours directly outside the stadium.... kind of 'quota' bust arrangment... didn't hear of many altercations otherwise in the lot or at the tent city the city opened up on one of the local golf courses

[zero]

They opened up a tent city on one of the local golf courses! A) That sounds particularly unique must have been a fucked scene Must have been a wicked party afterwards.

[StoneMtn]

I agree, Pais. I was surprised at how many busts they reported later on, because it seemed to me more like the Hamilton cops were there as a welcome-wagon rather than as enforcement. I found those shows to be relatively hassle-free.

[paisley]

all the city hotels/motels were full (big spenders no less) so plan B was required... the city newspapers heralded the Dead shows like a casino had just opened

didn't make it over to tent city sadly, heard it was fun... was March and there was snow on the ground... someone told me and I thought they were lying ("things like that don't happen in hamilton!")... grew up getting thrown against the hoods of police cruisers and the like, so was pretty freaked out by hamilton turning super cool all of a sudden

(yeah, was suprised at the numbers too... didn't see any real legal situations either day)

Edited January 24, 2007 by Guest

[ollie]

I can recall seeing undercover narcs at dead shows. They stuck out so bad. So easy to spot.

Can you spot the narc?