Posted on 10/22/2004 3:46:41 AM PDT by ninonitti
The sequence of events that led to the death of an Emerson College student began when a half-dozen officers on horseback were surrounded by rioting Red Sox fans on Lansdowne Street about 1:30 a.m. yesterday, witnesses said.
By the time armor-clad cops dispersed the crowd of some 3,000 in the shadow of Fenway Park's Green Monster, Victoria Snelgrove, 21, lay fatally injured. She had been struck in the eye by one of a number of pepper balls fired by police to quell unruly fans throwing bottles and bricks.
``The cops (on horseback) pushed in and the people closed in behind them,'' said Emerson student Brett Schweinberg, 18, who was struck by two pepper projectiles fired by police while trying to scale the Green Monster.
``They were surrounded by people and a bottle landed near a horse and it spooked it. It faltered and it got jittery and 30 to 40 seconds later, cops turned around and fired at a group of people about 20 feet to my left. People scattered except for one girl who was bleeding from the nose and mouth.''
A Herald reporter in the midst of the crowd saw revelry turn to mob mentality. Several people tried to scale the Green Monster, at least one of whom plummeted to the ground after being shot by a projectile.
Small fires burned, street signs were torn down and trash barrels were tossed about as police struggled to control the increasingly hostile crowd. Several cars became trapped by walls of people while drivers spun their tires and blared stereos - some with people riding on the roof. Several bottles were thrown, one of which reportedly struck a police officer, breaking his nose.
Theshot that killed Snelgrove followed a standoff between a cop on horseback and a young man wearing a gray knit hat. Standing by a bustling sausage cart, the man refused the officer's orders to move, prompting the officer to reach down and toss him to the ground. After getting up, the man hurled profanities at the cop and made several obscene gestures.
More bottles were thrown as at least one riot cop fired projectiles into the crowd, one of which apparently struck Snelgrove. She immediately fell to the ground while her friends tended to her, rubbing her head as blood streamed from her face. Horrified onlookers shouted ``get an ambulance'' as the girl drifted in and out of consciousness. One of the riot cops checked on the girl briefly. Approximately five minutes after she collapsed, mounted police cleared a path for an ambulance and the girl was taken away.
As cops cleared the crowd, one young man who had been standing near Snelgrove shouted at police, ``Are you happy? Murderers!''
One officer was stunned at the ferocity of the violence. ``I saw the horses surrounded,'' he said. ``It was like a vacuum. They got sucked in. I saw guys holding small trees they had pulled out of the ground like warriors. They were holding steel sign posts they had bent over and broken. We had to fight to get control.''
"Come back with proof that those 6 policemen went out with the intent to kill this woman - picking her out of a crowd of 3000 and I might reconsider my opinion."
'Responsibility' and 'intention' are two different concepts. Of course the police did not 'intend' to kill her. Their actions, however, were 'responsible' for her death.
They misused the equipment, not only hitting an innocent bystander, not the intended target, but hitting her in the face, an area NOT to be targeted ever.
Uh, READ POST #4!!!!
Ooops, sorry...I thought you were criticizing the police.
It's been my experience that raising the velocity on my paintball gun negatively affects accuracy and precision. Other than being disqualified from a tournament for shooting hot(300 FPS+)at the after match chrono, accuracy is the other reason I run my gun at 285 PSI.
Knowing that a paintball is a round projectile fired from a smooth bore barrel, not a rifled barrel, it makes sense. 300 FPS and higher causes a "knuckleball" effect on the paintball.
Oh, so NOW you want to distinguish between intent and responsibility. I agree completely with your statements above.
The only fatality in this incident was caused by the police. You support the police, so presumably you support the killing of this young woman. See how you are?
Too bad, though, you weren't capable of distinguishing between my support of police and supporting the killing of civilians. Yeah, I go around supporting deadly mistakes all the time - not!
My stand was and is: "I support law-enforcement on this one especially - because that's what they were trying to do: enforce the law. So sorry a young girl got killed - but I will never believe that the police's intent was to kill anyone."
Kerry was endorsed by the Boston Police union.
Not me!
MOST police vote Republican too!
HOW OLD ARE YOU? I've never tried to "debate" anyone so immature before in my life. I'm through trying to have a decent, logical debate with you. Frankly, I don't think it was ever your intent to debate. You were probably just bored and thought you'd get off on making stupid, illogical arguments. Well, I have so many better things to do with my time than waste it on you - so I don't give a flip what you say. I never posted to you to begin with - nor will I ever again. Go irritate someone else.
It would nice if there were a "city" and then there were "taxpayers". Unfortunately, I still own property in Boston so I'll be paying for my share of the Darwin Award on this one. (Most Boston cops live in the 'burbs)
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