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Thanksgiving Weekend 2002 |
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Thanksgiving Weekend 2002 |
Thanksgiving Weekend 2002
Law Enforcement Overkill - Part II
Until now, the Imperial County Sheriff has had little to do with enforcement activity in the dunes -- this was previously the responsibility of the federal BLM. It all changed dramatically this weekend with the local Sheriff mobilizing well over 100 officers from across Southern California. The local and federal agencies then combined with the purpose of aggressively enforcing new rules that have been placed into effect to control large weekend crowds.
It appears the BLM, by itself, was seen as unprepared to cope with misbehavior -- its primary purpose is the enforcement and collection of parking fees on the sand.
Faced with a nighttime curfew at Competition Hill, the partiers moved to Oldsmobile Hill Friday night. Reportedly, Rangers attempting to break up the party were repulsed by bottle throwers, and the next day, the curfew was improperly extended without proper notice to the other hill. On Saturday night, the combined force initiated action at Oldsmobile Hill -- some 100+ heavily armed assault units forcibly broke up the celebration. When the displaced partygoers simply changed locations, the combined force moved north, in riot line formation, up Oldsmobile Road, eventually closing the entire road to Hwy. 78 amidst near-riot conditions.
According to preliminary reports, arrests were down this year, despite the provocation, due to the parties being closed. One also wonders if arrests were also down in the rest of Imperial County and in the other California counties, which were shorthanded the deputies on party patrol in the Dunes. The numbers were reported as 170,000 duners, but it looked about half that. The inflated numbers may be an attempt to justify what turned out to be a strange and embarrassing overreaction to the situation in the dunes.
Strange, too, was the puzzling removal of the starting line "jump" at the Flatland Drags. With it gone, the dragway doubled in length, resulting in at least two vehicles piling into the crowd at speed, and this ugly crash as a vehicle at speed hit racers waiting to start. Doubtless the solution will be the closure of the Flatland Drags, because it has become too dangerous.
Thanksgiving Weekend 2002 Photos:
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06 DEC 2002
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