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50 years on, and it is still politically incorrect to dare suggest that Mr. Hunter has only himself to blame for his own fate.

Like most other death of young black men.

Ouch!! Now that is RACIST.

Well no, thats statistics. But in this case it was a white criminal who used more force than necessary and so im with Stoneage on the verdict.

To suggest that most young black men who die only have themselves to blame is RACIST.

I am really alarmed at the degree of racism that is apparent on this forum.

It sure sounds like a racist statement.Just like the racist statement you made calling people Rednecks back on page 4 of this thread. Just curious ,are you alarmed at yourself?

I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

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Stoneage
I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

I also don't care what race anyone of them were. The race issue in America is so skewed I wonder if there is any hope. We see that right on this board.


One thing that I have noticed on this board is people think that Passaro should be judged ( in court ) for the actions of the Hell's Angels in general. During Passaro's trial he would have been judged just by his actions. He saw a gun that he reasonably thought was pointed at him and his friends and he knifed the guy and disarmed him. I can see what the verdict was not guilty. His testified that he knifed Hunter twice and that was it and then he was pushed away. he is not responsible for what happened after that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-02 17:41 by stanlove.

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Stoneage
I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

How would it be possible for the one who "threw the first punch" to claim self-defense if they were the instigator ?

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I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

How would it be possible for the one who "threw the first punch" to claim self-defense if they were the instigator ?

This proves you still do not get how trials work. Nobody accused Passaro of throwing the first punch. You are treating all Hell's Angels like they are one person. That is not the way it works. Passaro is not responsible for the actions of the other Hells' Angels.

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I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

How would it be possible for the one who "threw the first punch" to claim self-defense if they were the instigator ?

This proves you still do not get how trials work. Nobody accused Passaro of throwing the first punch. You are treating all Hell's Angels like they are one person. That is not the way it works. Passaro is not responsible for the actions of the other Hells' Angels.

I know all too well how the court system works. I do not think that the knife play was Passaro's first interaction with the victim.

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I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

How would it be possible for the one who "threw the first punch" to claim self-defense if they were the instigator ?

This proves you still do not get how trials work. Nobody accused Passaro of throwing the first punch. You are treating all Hell's Angels like they are one person. That is not the way it works. Passaro is not responsible for the actions of the other Hells' Angels.

I know all too well how the court system works. I do not think that the knife play was Passaro's first interaction with the victim.

Do you have anything to back to up?

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Just imagine if the Black Panthers had been "hired" and it was some white guy with an incorrect attitude that had been "offed"...

That is not a good comparison at all. There is no proof at all that Hunter was killed just because he had an incorrect attitude.

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I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

How would it be possible for the one who "threw the first punch" to claim self-defense if they were the instigator ?

This proves you still do not get how trials work. Nobody accused Passaro of throwing the first punch. You are treating all Hell's Angels like they are one person. That is not the way it works. Passaro is not responsible for the actions of the other Hells' Angels.

I know all too well how the court system works. I do not think that the knife play was Passaro's first interaction with the victim.

Do you have anything to back to up?

Other footage from earlier on, indicates their relative proximity to one another and said distance could not have varied by much. It would appear that that point of the stage was Passaro's "post" so to speak. Meredith Hunter was assaulted before the escalation to the use of the knife.

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I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

How would it be possible for the one who "threw the first punch" to claim self-defense if they were the instigator ?

This proves you still do not get how trials work. Nobody accused Passaro of throwing the first punch. You are treating all Hell's Angels like they are one person. That is not the way it works. Passaro is not responsible for the actions of the other Hells' Angels.

I know all too well how the court system works. I do not think that the knife play was Passaro's first interaction with the victim.

Do you have anything to back to up?

Other footage from earlier on, indicates their relative proximity to one another and said distance could not have varied by much. It would appear that that point of the stage was Passaro's "post" so to speak. Meredith Hunter was assaulted before the escalation to the use of the knife.

So you are going to tell the jury that they were close to each other earlier on and that was your proof that Passaro assaulted him. Does the earlier footage show Passasro doing anything to Hunter?

The defense would also bring out the picture of Hunter being confronted ( hat it looks like ) by a different Angle by the stage and being in the same proximity to other Angles.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-02 18:39 by stanlove.

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Just imagine if the Black Panthers had been "hired" and it was some white guy with an incorrect attitude that had been "offed"...

Oh that's easy, it's socially acceptable in todays society.

Welcome to Sweden.

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I'm only concerned about the question of guilt here. The race issue is another question. It leads nowhere arguing about that. The core legal issue here is whether the violence from the HA would count as self-defense or not. Personally I think he used more force than necessary. He stepped over the limits for self-defense. That's my view on this situation.

I agree, manslaughter sounds right. Maybe it’s the fact he aimed at the HA. Knife vs revolver.

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One thing that I have noticed on this board is people think that Passaro should be judged ( in court ) for the actions of the Hell's Angels in general. During Passaro's trial he would have been judged just by his actions. He saw a gun that he reasonably thought was pointed at him and his friends and he knifed the guy and disarmed him. I can see what the verdict was not guilty. His testified that he knifed Hunter twice and that was it and then he was pushed away. he is not responsible for what happened after that.

True that Passaro should not be judged for the doings of his 'brothers' but what he personally did. It was his trial, not against the Hells Angels in general. That he was the only suspect, says more of a lousy police work than of anything else. And as it turned out to be the only evidence the jury had to base on their decision was the GIMME SHELTER footage. Whatever Passaro or any Angel - or Hunter - did before or after the scene didn't matter, because they were able to brought only one - scared - eye-wittness into court, whose testimony was simply killed by the defense - firstly, the wittness was shown to be inconsistent in his sayings - what he said in court differed from what he said to ROLLING STONE earlier. Secondly, and more importantly, he was shown to have been 'under the influence' during the event - which seemingly ruled out the last drops of his credibility (with that logic, they couldn't have most likely found any credible wittness from that crowd...)

So what was left for the jury, as the defence hoped, was exactly the same evidence we all have here to judge from: that of GIMME SHELTER footage. And from that base I can only make the same decision as the jury did: not guilty. I am with Stoneage that he 'used more force than necessary' but it could be some contextual differences here - probably we here in Northern Europe have a bit stronger criteria in those kind of things... it is not far from 'manslaughter' though, but I think it is justified that he walked free. I can morally condemn him and whatever he is and represents, but I cannot see him being guilty of murdering Meredith Hunter.

Anyway, I am not that interested if the guy - or anyone - is a guilty or not - I leave that lawyers to solve that one out, but what interests me is, to say it with a cliche - the truth: what really happened there. To be more precise: what happened before and after the filmed scene. Sad that Eric Saarinen or whoever was shooting it, didn't have his camera targeted earlier. According to both Hunter's gilrfriend and Passaro himself, Hunter was on the stage earlier, sitting in some amp or something, and then pushed away there by force. Then the whatever 'hassle' took place - of which we have different accounts - which resulted him going down and jumping up and running towards the stage with a gun in his hand, as we can see from the footage. And then disappearing after Passaro had hitted him twice (nicely: that film evidence cohers with Passaro's claim of 'just' two hits). It could be very well that Passaro was goddamn lucky the camera catching exactly the 'right' moment of series of events for his defence. Had him, with others, seen kicking and throbbing an almost dead person on the ground, his verdict might have been different.

Anyway, what goes for the initial provocative suggestion of this long thread, had Meredith Hunter had some sort of markchampmanian ideas in his mind, why wouldn't have him accomplish those while he was there on the stage - just next to Jagger - but instead he 'decided' to fight first with some Angels and then suddenly in the middle of that hassle decided to make the move... To me the whole idea of him targeting Jagger was brought on the table by Passaro people in trying justify his actions. The whole thing was between him and the Angels.

Damn, it was a bad day and night altogether...

- Doxa



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-02 20:39 by Doxa.

Tony Sanchez "up an down with the RS" dedicates quite a few lines on the subject. Even if it is exaggerated it's worth reading to get an idea about what was going on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-02 20:28 by TheflyingDutchman.

Jim Harrington of the Oakland Tribune:



The Altamont story begins in London, where Scully had gone in mid-1969 to scout locations for a free concert featuring the Dead and Airplane. He ended up talking to the Stones, who were about to roll out on a North American tour, and were interested in doing their own free concert on the West Coast.
"They were taking some flak for their high ticket prices and I just suggested that they play in Golden Gate Park," recalls Scully, who now lives in Monterey. "That's where it all started."

Scully, who had helped put on numerous free shows in the Bay Area in the late 1960s, secured a concert permit for Golden Gate Park. One of the conditions, however, was that the concert couldn't be announced until 24 hours before showtime. Jagger, who either didn't know or didn't care about the rule, spilled the news to the media, and the permit was revoked.
Organizers found a new option in Sears Point ­ now Infineon Raceway in Sonoma County, which had ample space and facilities. Work crews picked a small hilltop on which to erect a 4-foot-tall stage, which would have enabled performers to perform 10 to 15 feet above the crowd. As it turns out, that would have been a vital safety feature.

"If (the Rolling Stones) had played at Sears Point, nothing would have happened," says Dennis McNally, longtime Grateful Dead publicist.
But problems arose when it became known that the Stones were planning to use the event as a pivotal scene in "Gimme Shelter." Sears Point owners were peeved, negotiations broke down, and the festival again found itself without a home.

"We sort of felt like we got taken," says Alamo resident Bob Matthews, a recording engineer on several Dead albums who rolled tape at Altamont. "We were doing this because (the Stones) were going to do a free concert for San Francisco, which they did, but its focus was on this movie, not just on playing music."
With just two days until showtime, Altamont Speedway owner Dick Carter offered up his site and organizers began a mad scramble to ready the ill-equipped site.

By this point, the momentum to put on the concert was such that the likes of prominent San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli and Woodstock co-creator Michael Lang had signed on as organizers. But Bill Graham, the most experienced concert promoter in Northern California, wanted no part of it.
"He said it was unsafe," says Gregg Perloff, the co-founder of the Berkeley-based concert promoter Another Planet who worked alongside Graham for more than a decade. "Bill refused to promote the show."

The day of the festival, Scully recalls, was a "doomsday scenario." The venue lacked the proper medical staff, parking space and other facilities to host a crowd that size. Traffic was snarled for miles, as concertgoers simply abandoned their cars.
Arguably the most infamous decision was to invite the Hells Angels. Although the popular perception is that the bikers were hired as security, the arrangement was in reality much less formal. In exchange for $500 in beer, the Angels would park their bikes near the stage and provide a visual deterrent to anyone who might consider climbing on the equipment ­ much like they'd done for Grateful Dead free shows in the past.

But by the time the day's second act, Jefferson Airplane, took the stage, the scene was already beginning to unravel. The Angels and members of the increasingly unruly crowd began to fight. The film "Gimme Shelter" documents how Airplane singer Marty Balin was knocked out by an Angel.
"There were 30 to 50 (Angels), and however many hundred thousand people in front of them," McNally says. "There were a lot of very crazy, drug-addled people, because they were getting whacked and they weren't leaving."

Witnessing the security problems, the Grateful Dead decided not to play. But the show went on with performances by the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Then the Rolling Stones took the stage and within minutes, conditions further deteriorated. Fights continued breaking out between fans and Angels ­ and the Stones had to stop playing during the third number, "Sympathy for the Devil."

Although Jagger begged fans to "just be cool down in the front there," the scene grew uglier. Eighteen-year-old Meredith Hunter reportedly tried to get onstage and was knocked back by the Angels. He returned with pistol in hand and was stabbed by Angel Alan Passaro ­ a scene captured in "Gimme Shelter."
Hunter died from his wounds, and autopsy reports showed that he was on methamphetamines at the time of death. Passaro was acquitted of murder charges after the jury viewed concert footage and ruled that he had acted in self-defense.

"I saw the guy, Meredith Hunter, with his gun out and I thought, 'Oh, crap, this is not good,' Scully says. "He was just running around the crowd ­ it was sick ­ just stepping on people. I just prayed that somebody would stop him, but who is going to wrestle a guy to the ground with a gun at a concert like that? "... Had (Passaro) not been there, there would have been havoc."

The Stones, who may or may not have known that Hunter had died, returned after the melee to play eight more songs. According to Matthews, who recorded the performance and still holds the tapes, the band delivered an inspired second set that closed with "Street Fighting Man," a song that might have rung the closing bell on the Woodstock era.

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"I saw the guy, Meredith Hunter, with his gun out and I thought, 'Oh, crap, this is not good,' Scully says. "He was just running around the crowd ­ it was sick ­ just stepping on people. I just prayed that somebody would stop him, but who is going to wrestle a guy to the ground with a gun at a concert like that? "... Had (Passaro) not been there, there would have been havoc."[/b]

Scully, having some personal attachments there as well, seemingly is using a bit of his imaginative skills there, if that is compared to the other testimonies of the events. What Scully says sounds a bit too perfect interpretion of the events from the point of view of anyone being responsible for that concert to happen.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-02 20:58 by Doxa.

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One thing that I have noticed on this board is people think that Passaro should be judged ( in court ) for the actions of the Hell's Angels in general. During Passaro's trial he would have been judged just by his actions. He saw a gun that he reasonably thought was pointed at him and his friends and he knifed the guy and disarmed him. I can see what the verdict was not guilty. His testified that he knifed Hunter twice and that was it and then he was pushed away. he is not responsible for what happened after that.

Damn, it was a bad day and night altogether...

- Doxa

Yeah Doxa, it surely was!
I try to look at the Altamont event as a "one night" big city of several hundreds of thousands of people. 4 deaths and 4 babies born (according to some info). All in all a peaceful night for American standards. Way back in 1981 I visited Washington DC for work. I, ignorent European, had booked a hotel in a "wrong area", I was told. Around my arrival there was a shooting there between two black (sorry!) gangs. More than 4 dead! But worse, during the whole day well over 20 people were killed by violence. I was told that it was "just an ordinary day" ...
I still decided to eat a hamburger in a "black" MacDonalds. I was not really welcome, until I told I was from Europe. Never felt uncomfortable.
It IS possible !

"Where have all the young men gone, long time passing"
"They killed eachother one by one"
"When will they ever learn"

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50 years on, and it is still politically incorrect to dare suggest that Mr. Hunter has only himself to blame for his own fate.

Like most other death of young black men.

Ouch!! Now that is RACIST.

Well no, thats statistics. But in this case it was a white criminal who used more force than necessary and so im with Stoneage on the verdict.

To suggest that most young black men who die only have themselves to blame is RACIST.

I am really alarmed at the degree of racism that is apparent on this forum.

It sure sounds like a racist statement.Just like the racist statement you made calling people Rednecks back on page
4 of this thread. Just curious ,are you alarmed at yourself?

Rednecks are not a recognised erhnicity grouping. So your point is invalid.

Passaro is not to be judged by what others did but one could argue he did everything by the book according to the HA. He did act in self defense at that precise moment when Hunter pulled a gun but is everything that went before irrelevent? Had Hunter fired at one of the Angels, one could say they had it coming. So, what if Hunter had been a stand up guy (not high on meth, not all dressed up as a pimp wanna-be) and/or white. And legally armed.

Hunter never pointed the gun at Passaro (according to available footage). So how is it that Passaro was acting in self defense (unless Hunter had threatened to shot him prior)? I always found that curious.

On the other hand, by some accounts, MH had been attacked beforehand. If you watch the footage, you can see part of Hunter on the left edge of the frame. A man with glasses seems to be looking down at him. It looks as if MH was knocked to the ground and came up to his feet with his pistol drawn.

The Angels were beating people with pool cues. They could have easily killed any number of people. Fortunately they didn't.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-03 11:51 by terraplane.

I think Hunter provided a legit cause for the Angels to finally kill somebody after a whole day of sociopathic behaviour. Disgusting criminal cult. Hunter shouldve just let it slide. At that time and place he might have felt like an outsider from the get go despite the liberal attitudes. I still think he tried to be a gangster.

Perhaps everyone can just agree that the angels were generally bad news?

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Perhaps everyone can just agree that the angels were generally bad news?

Of course, and a hopelessly bad fit for their self-appointed «job».

Some bits about the gun
This happened about about 10-12 days after the incident:

"At the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, David turned over the footage; the Angels turned over the gun; and any threat of criminal prosecution for us was ended."

Schneider, Ronnie. Out of Our Heads with Proof of Truth: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Me (Kindle Locations 3436-3437). CLB, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wild" is one way of looking back at the events of December 6, 1969. But when all of the Big People and the 300,000 pilgrims had gone home, there was only that wasteland of tromped-on, pissed-on grass, lost beads, lost earrings, lost panties and broken bottles. The scavengers pawed over the ground as once thieves had ransacked the bodies of the soldiers on the field of Waterloo. Even the gun of Meredith Hunter was lost on the field of Altamont: as he lay dying on his stomach, somebody stole it.

One of the objects shown to the jury was a 22-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with a six-inch barrel. It was another hard-to-get item. The sheriff's people got it by contacting an inspector in the San Francisco police department who specializes in Hell's Angels. He talked to one of their leaders about the gun and was told: "It'll turn up on my porch one day." And it did (even though nobody knows for sure that it was Hunter's gun). Sergeant Donovan testified that the gun had not been fired in recent years. But when Passaro took the stand he said Hunter had fired his gun just before a knife, or knives, made hamburger of his back.

[www.rollingstone.com]

And somewhere there is an article that has the police saying the gun was loaded
Think those "brothers" of Passaro helped get it loaded for "the man" in an effort to help him with his story ?

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Hunter never pointed the gun at Passaro (according to available footage). So how is it that Passaro was acting in self defense (unless Hunter had threatened to shot him prior)? I always found that curious.

I've been thinking this problem as well. As I argued above, I think Passaro - from the base of that film footage (which unfortunately doesn't cover all relavant things) - is not guilty for a murder, but beside that, if it is a case of 'self-defence', and not that of 'Manslaughter', I am confused. To me it looks like that Hunter is not aiming at Passaro, who comes more or less from a blind angle to throb him back. But then again, my common sense says that protecting some other people from a deadly threat should count as valuable as protecting yourself. Since I am not any expert on any kind of legal matters, I did some googling, and I come up with this one from freedictionary:

Self-defence

the use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of the family from bodily harm from the attack of an aggressor, if the defender has reason to believe he/she/they is/are in danger. Self-defense is a common defense by a person accused of assault, battery, or homicide. The force used in self-defense may be sufficient for protection from apparent harm (not just an empty verbal threat) or to halt any danger from attack, but cannot be an excuse to continue the attack or use excessive force. Examples: an unarmed man punches Allen Alibi, who hits the attacker with a baseball bat. That is legitimate self-defense, but Alibi cannot chase after the attacker and shoot him or beat him senseless. If the attacker has a gun or a butcher knife and is verbally threatening, Alibi is probably warranted in shooting him. Basically, appropriate self-defense is judged on all the circumstances. Reasonable force can also be used to protect property from theft or destruction. Self-defense cannot include killing or great bodily harm to defend property, unless personal danger is also involved, as is the case in most burglaries, muggings or vandalism.

As we can see the 'extended' form of self-defense includes that of protecting one's 'family', which in the case of Passaro could be argued for ("if the defender has reason to believe he/she/they is/are in danger").

But then the part of "the force used in self-defense may be sufficient for protection from apparent harm (not just an empty verbal threat) or to halt any danger from attack, but cannot be an excuse to continue the attack or use excessive force." starts to ring the bells... Well, the footage stops just after the two hits by Passaro, and then what exactly happens to Hunter and how much Passaro is involved in beating the life out of him, is an open question. To me eyes the jury were treating with silky gloves Passaro, and he should have send them flowers afterwards - and also to Maysles brothers.... (and this is nothing to do with the so called 'first punch', but with estimating how much force is sufficient here to make/keep the killing 'justified'or even 'legitimate' within the legal limits of 'self-defence'). I guess it being a knife vs. gun thing and it all happening within a few seconds - Passaro acting in more by an instinct than by reflection - that the things happening in the footage can be seen acceptable.

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-03 16:12 by Doxa.

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curt
Some bits about the gun
This happened about about 10-12 days after the incident:

"At the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, David turned over the footage; the Angels turned over the gun; and any threat of criminal prosecution for us was ended."

Schneider, Ronnie. Out of Our Heads with Proof of Truth: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Me (Kindle Locations 3436-3437). CLB, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wild" is one way of looking back at the events of December 6, 1969. But when all of the Big People and the 300,000 pilgrims had gone home, there was only that wasteland of tromped-on, pissed-on grass, lost beads, lost earrings, lost panties and broken bottles. The scavengers pawed over the ground as once thieves had ransacked the bodies of the soldiers on the field of Waterloo. Even the gun of Meredith Hunter was lost on the field of Altamont: as he lay dying on his stomach, somebody stole it.

One of the objects shown to the jury was a 22-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with a six-inch barrel. It was another hard-to-get item. The sheriff's people got it by contacting an inspector in the San Francisco police department who specializes in Hell's Angels. He talked to one of their leaders about the gun and was told: "It'll turn up on my porch one day." And it did (even though nobody knows for sure that it was Hunter's gun). Sergeant Donovan testified that the gun had not been fired in recent years. But when Passaro took the stand he said Hunter had fired his gun just before a knife, or knives, made hamburger of his back.

[www.rollingstone.com]

And somewhere there is an article that has the police saying the gun was loaded
Think those "brothers" of Passaro helped get it loaded for "the man" in an effort to help him with his story ?

I wouldn't rule that out...

Passaro drowned in a lake in suspicious circumstances in 1985 so maybe there is karma after all.

Holy cow. Passaro was also young, just 21 at the time of the murder.

Well let's hear from Ralph...



Ralph "Sonny" Barger, chief of the Bay Area Angels, he who had sat with Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg in the front row of the Bob Dylan concert in Berkeley,
he who had danced to the rock bands at a hundred dances in the Avalon, the Fillmore and California Hall, went on KSAN, San Francisco's underground FM station, the night after the Altamont murder and said,

"We were told if we showed up, we could sit on the stage and drink some beer that the Stones' managers had brought us, you know. And I'm bum kicked about the whole thing. I didn't like what happened there. We were told we were supposed to sit on the
stage and keep people off, and a little back, if we could. We parked where we were told we were supposed to park. Mostly, a little bit to the side of the stage so that people who were there didn't have to move back too far.

"Personally, I was there to sit on the stage and listen and drink this beer that we were promised. I didn't go there to fight. I went there to have a good time and sit on the stage. Finally, the Stones come out and they start playing.
Everybody's having a good, good time. All of a sudden, someone down in front, where this one bike, right directly in front, was, is yelling. I myself jumped down there and the wiring has shorted out somewhere. The bike had caught fire.
The people were packed right up to the stage. So I told them to back up so we can get this fire out. Nobody'd back up. Some other Angels caught what was happening and came off the stage, and when they did, people started backing up.

"Now I ain't saying anything about no Angel hit anybody. I know some of them hit people. But they moved them people back out of the way of the bike. And we got the fire put out. In the process, you know what, some people got hit.
And you know what? Some of them people were like maybe them Friday-nighters that got that front row, I don't know, but they didn't want to give up that spot even to put that fire out. And when they come back fightin', they got thumped.
And a lot of time there was six or seven Angels on one guy, and a lot of times there wasn't. After that happened, we got the fire out. And everything was cool. The people moved back in again."

Barger claimed people started knocking over the Angels' bikes. "Now I don't know if you think we pay fifty dollars for them things, or steal them, or pay a lot for them, or what. But most people that's got a good Harley chopper got a few grand invested in it.
Ain't nobody gonna kick my motorcycle. And they might think because they're in a crowd of 300,000 people that they can do it and get away with it. But when you're standing there looking at something that's your
life, and everything you got is invested in that thing, and you love that thing better than you love anything in the world, and you see a guy kick it, you know who he is. And if you got to go through fifty people to get to him, you're gonna get to him.

"We moved them people to save that bike. And, after that, they tried to destroy our bikes, and we're not gonna stand for it. And that made it personal...You know what? I'm a violent cat when I got to be. But I don't really want to be.
But there ain't nobody gonna take anything I got and try to destroy it. Mick Jagger, he put it all on the Angels.

"Look, I ain't no cop. I ain't never going to ever pretend to be a cop. I didn't go there to police nothing. They told me if I could sit on the edge of the stage so nobody would climb over me, I could drink beer until the show was over.
That's what I went there to do...I'm no peace creep, by any sense of the word, and if a cat don't want to fight with me, don't want to hassle with me, I want to be his friend. If he don't want to be my friend, then out of sight, don't even talk to me.
But if he don't want to be my friend and he's gonna get in my face, I'm gonna hurt him, or he's gonna hurt me. And you know what?
It doesn't really matter if he hurts me, because I've been hurt before. And I've been hurt by experts. Over the years, though, I've learned how to get up and do it again."

always thought that Passaro may have done two things that night:

1) stepped in to diffuse a dangerous situation and disarmed Hunter; and
2) got caught up in/took advantage of the moment and kept stabbing Hunter for seemingly no exigent reason



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-03 16:41 by HalfNanker.