‘Situation was dire’: Eyewitness details fatal Fenway riot

[BeyondGeography]

By Dave Wedge
Friday, October 22, 2004
Boston Herald

Perched on a cement parking deck on Lansdowne Street early yesterday, I watched a tragedy unfold.
As an unwitting Victoria Snelgrove stood by a sausage cart with friends, six police officers on horseback and a handful of riot cops became surrounded by a surging - and increasingly hostile - mob of Red Sox revelers. Despite scattered fires, vandalism, a few scuffles and some arrests, the scene was relatively under control for a while.
But things took a deadly turn after a heated exchange between a mounted officer and a surly young man in a gray knit cap. After he refused the cop's orders to leave the area, the officer, from his horse, grabbed the man from the back of his shirt and tossed him to the ground.
<snip>
At one point, I saw an officer toting a compressed air gun fire at least one round into the crowd. A split second later, the 21-year-old Emerson College journalism major was lying on the sidewalk, blood streaming from her face...Standing directly above the scene, I watched her friends softly caress her head as she drifted in and out of consciousness. One felt for her pulse. Some in the crowd began screaming for an ambulance. Another cried, ``Call 911.''

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=50314

[Rainbowreflect]

1. Such a sad, senseless death.

[Warpy]

2. When are these morons gonna read the directions?

Rubber bullets are supposed to be fired at the gound and ricocheted into a crowd. They are never supposed to be fired directly AT people, especially not at head level!!

Jaysus.