Police Defend Use of Force After Seeing Tape of Fracas

The force used against a young punk rock fan following an Aug. 3 concert in Pomona was defended by police Friday after officials watched a videotape of the incident, while one council member said she is concerned about what she saw.

The tape, which was released by one of the concert hall owners, shows an officer squaring his bean-bag gun to knock a young man off a stone marker and another officer grabbing the downed man’s hair and trying to yank him to his feet.

Officers had been called out to the Glass House at 200 W. 2nd St. after a fight broke out. When officers tried to disperse the crowd, concertgoers threw rocks and bottles at them, said Capt. Ron Windell, who saw the tape.

Police said that about 300 people were involved in the melee and that they arrested four adults and detained five juveniles. One person was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a peace officer with a deadly weapon. All had posted bail or were released by Friday.

Capt. Jim Harding said the actions were justified because the young man, who has not been identified, had refused to leave. The officer used his gun to move the man because he could not reasonably put it down and move him along any other way, Harding said.

“There’s a lot of adrenaline there,” he said. “On both sides.”

But Glass House co-owners Perry Tollett and Greg Meyer disputed that the crowd turned on the officers.

“We’ve dispersed 600 crowds without a problem. . . . The police didn’t need to be there,” Meyer said.

Pomona Councilwoman Norma Torres, after viewing the tape, said she was concerned about the police treatment of the man on the marker.

“Definitely, there are different ways of handling the situation,” she said. “But those are personnel issues, and I couldn’t comment on them.”

Torres said she hoped there would be a full investigation of the incident.

“Right now I think we should really be concentrating on trying to find out what happened,” she said. “I would like to have a true investigation.”

Torres said she thought the tape did not show all of the relevant events.

“I have a hard time believing that they would go and do something like that [without provocation],” she said.

“As far as any other complaints from parents or witnesses, I certainly would hope they would come forward and bring those to the chief’s office.”

Harding said that there is an investigation involving the incident.

Meyer and Tollett said that police tried to create an incident that would allow the city to shut down the venue.

“This was a chance to pound on some punk rock kids,” Meyer said. “They wanted an incident.”

Windell said the police have no such vendetta against the Glass House.

“I [would not] go tell Mr. Meyer how to run that operation,” he said, “and I would expect him to have the same courtesy to the Police Department.”

The tape, which was shot by a neighborhood resident, shows about 50 fans milling in an open area across from the Glass House. Four glass bottles are heard breaking, but none appears to have been thrown at officers, nor does there seem to be a fight among the concertgoers.

After police order the crowd to disperse, fans scream and flee, except for one young man on the marker. An officer is shown knocking the man off the marker. Another officer pulls the man to his feet by his hair. A third approaches and shoves him, and he falls to the ground again.

At least one other fan said he was assaulted by the police.

“An officer grabbed my collar, swung me around and smacked me once with a club,” said Eric Marshall, 21, of Buena Park, who attended the Glass House concert to see the Casualties, a hard-core punk band. “Several officers started clubbing me in the back. . . . I was horrified that this was happening to me.”