Brendan from Valencia posted this:

Tonight at the Bamboozle Road Show I witnessed the worst case of police brutality I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure of the exact story of what happened, all I know is that I walked downstairs and was ready to leave the venue only to see Chris V being pushed back into the venue (from the alley) by 3 cops with billy clubs. They were screaming and pushing him to the ground, threw him down onto a glass bottle that he hit his head on, split it open. He was bleeding everywhere and they still continued to beat him with clubs. They would not stop, even when he was compliant. Everyone was screaming for them to stop, I just could not stop yelling, I was so angry. I wanted so bad to have us all go over and pull them off of him, but no one could or we’d be next. Finally they stopped and dragged him outside after a pint of blood left his head and was all over the stage of the TLA. After everything was calmed down a bit, I saw my good friend Ian Planet being shoved inside, slammed into a brick wall, his cell phone thrown across the room and his face shoved onto the concrete floor all because he wanted to go outside and finish his job. The same happened to T-Fair right out back as well. (read the full blog here)

In the explosive Absolutepunk thread about the incident, a member of Mercy Mercedes offers his perspective:

Our(mercymercedes) van was parked behind the tla in an alley in which we were informed to do. 3bike cops roll up and give us tickets for being parked there, the same place we were instructed to park. The only way out of the narrow alley was to back out our van and trailer. We were in the process of loading gear after the show when the cops come back a second time. I am in the driver seat backing up the rig just as the cops asked. Then I hear a loud popping noise. I ran over a water bottle in the street that I obviously didn’t know was there. The water splashed over the the bike cop. At the time I had to hold the laughter in because it was priceless. these cops just gave us like 4 unecessary tickets and were very rude at doing so. The cop then approaches my window with his soaked clear-leansed bike-cop oakleys in hand and says “do you know how to f*cking drive?” I replied yessir I’m doing exactly what u asked. He then turnes to the other officer and says “write him another ticket and impound their van and trailer.”

Word of this gets to Trevor aka T-fair, WTKs tour manager. Being the new “baby band” on this tour, T-fair has showed us the ropes and taught us a lot about how these bigger tours work. Already appreciative of him, he came to our aid to work things out with cops for us. He tried to work things out in a calmly manner, when the cops just start threatning him. Trevor calmly says “what are you gonna do I haven’t done anything.” And of coarce I saw the whole thing and never once did do anything threatning to the cops. They then throw him up against our van pretty hard. Then Chris V. WTKs merch guy walks out to see his friend and TM jacked up on our van for nothin. The cops start pushing every one to get back in the venue. And by pushing I mean really ruffing everyone. Chris V is a suuuuper nice dude just so u guys know that. By now everyone is screaming. The cops are cursing at all of us. One cop throws chris v in the venue and shuts the door. Then the doors opens back up. Still at this point and any point in the night no one has threatend a police officer. The officer that slammed the door on everyone runs in saying word for word, “come here you mother f*cker!!” He ran inside with metal baton in hand swinging. After this I heard more than I saw because of the situation. But my bandmates in mercy saw all of this and said that chris v never tried to fight the cop or resist arrest, but the cops repeatedly beat him with the metal rod.

http://www.buzznet.com/musicnews/bamboozle-roadshow-beatdown-j4026721/

Philadelphia cops are at it again. Does this sound familiar, does Pointless Fest ring a bell??

Asshole cops like the one picture above give all the other Philadelphia cops a bad name. I’ve dealt with plenty of cops while living in Philadelphia and ran into some cool cops. When I was living on 12th and Kater, we threw some insane parties and we only had one bad run-in with the police. Most of the time they just made everyone go home and said we could have a few people over later.

One time they arrested a friend of mine for drinking outside, slammed him against a car and broke his phone in half… completely unnecessary. They arrested his friend for standing up for him and asking why they were unnecessarily abusing him. AND they stole a box of our liquor and our tap

Can you believe only a few months ago, we were hanging out with the police on Broad Street and celebrating:

Lately, all I’ve been hearing are how cops are abusing their “power” and harassing people. What the fuck? Aren’t they supposed to serve and protect?? The only people they seem to be serving or protecting are each other. That video José posted is disgusting. What justice is being served here? You’d think cops would have more important things to do than beat on touring bands and power tripping up and down South Street.

This is the Philadelphia Police Department’s mission statement:

he mission of the Philadelphia Police Department is to fight crime and the fear of crime, including terrorism, by working with our partners to enforce the laws, apprehend offenders, prevent crime from occurring, and improve the quality of life for all Philadelphians.

Really? And who’s protecting us from the cops who are committing crimes against innocent citizens?? This bullshit needs to come to an end NOW. I wish I had filmed the asshole cop who was harassing me, I would’ve sent it out to every media outlet and made that cop’s life a living hell. This is what needs to happen to the cops in that video and every asshole cop out there. Circulate the video, don’t let them victimize more innocent people. Bad press will force something to be done and hopefully the IAB will clean house, here’s wishing…