pandie

There was a riot in LA the other night, it was under-reported in the media as a 'melee' and all I can say is cover up? But I'm here to tell you what really happened. Because I was there. Long after TMZ and the news crews left. And much longer than I ever should've been. But we'll get to that in a minute.



It all started as an ordinary LA night. We had gone to pick up our friend Toxsick, lead vocalist of the band Blue Felix and his two companions who were here for a business meeting and some relaxing. Well, let;'s just say that this night turned out to be anything but relaxing.
Anyway, after some sightseeing and hotel room chilling etc etc we picked them up, headed on over to our friend's place, relaxed for a little, then collected him up and headed on out for dinner.

Our destination was the Rainbow Bar and grill, over on the Sunset Strip, a frequent haunt of mine and the place to go when you're in the music biz and in LA of course. We parked our cars up in a secret spot a little further west of the Bow, and walked on down to get our feed on. On the way we walked past the iconic Key Club and noticed a packed out street full of punk rockers, not an unusual sight by any means on the strip but it looked like it was going to be a big show. T.S.O.L, Youth Brigade and a few others were on the bill.

We arrived at the Rainbow to find it still quite quiet for that time of the night, as was to be expected, and sat at our usual table out on the patio. I ordered my usual mixed green and avocado salad (but with no gg!) and italian dressing, my rainbow favourite, our guests went all out and got the lobster. There were a couple drinks had by a couple people at our table but no one got rowdy and we just had a nice relaxing dinner....for a while that is.

A pack of punk kids suddenly came running like hell down the street with yellow jackets following in hot pursuit. Wondering what was going on we stuck our heads out and asked some other onlookers a couple questons and didn;'t think too much of it. There had been a bit of a fight, nothing too unusual. This is punk rock. It's the sunset strip. It was a show where they let in under 21's. THese things happen.

But then it escalated.

As we were sitting digesting the last of our dinners, and folks were ordering chocolate mousse for dessert (apparently the rainbow makes amazing mousse but alas it's not vegan so I wouldn't know) five or six WeHo sheriff cars rolled on by at an extreme pace, light shows flashing, sirens blazing and got into the mix. Two fire department vehicles and an ambulance followed not too much longer afterwards, and things began to get interesting,

At this point our curiosity was sufficiently aroused, we had to know what was going on. So a few of the guys stepped out into the street and checked it out, and asked some people who had just been up there what was going on. Fifty kids were fighting in the street or something they were alledging, and they were in a standoff with the police. The guys at the table next to us were trying to go to the show so they headed on down but they were back within minutes, reporting that the cops weren't letting them in. The show was getting shut down. Things were about to get heavy. So, with the lobster and salads and such still digesting in our stomachs we made a play for it and headed in the direction of our cars to get the fuck out of there and go home to sleep away the rest of Thursday night so we could get up early and take the Minnesotans to Melrose for an early morning shopping expedition.

But it was too late for all that. The riot police had rolled on in.

The strip was getting a little wild. Punk rock kids were running around and the police had parked up their cars blocking off the street in the exact direction that we needed to go. No one was doing anything too buckwild or illegal looking just yet but...the coppers had their helmets, shields, batons and beanbag bullets alll ready to make it go down if necessary. Sensing that this might be our alst moment out, we followed our fearless leader, who went and spoke to a cop holding down the line at the edge of thestreet, out of the way we had hoped, and explained the situation, our car was past their barrier, could we please just get to it and get out? He was told a big fat no, so he turned around, dejected but completely innocently to head back down where we had come from, and was promptly pepper sprayed in the face by the cop, from behind! He was doused, soaked completely in the stuff (his hoodie is now ruined!) and eyes burning he stumbled, Toxsick grabbe him and hauled him out. I was told to RUN! by my crew, so coughing and spluttering, eyes burning from all the pepper in the air we headed in the opposite direction. The cops were shooting kids at this point and kids were hurling trash cans from roofs, throwing bottles, it was complete and utter pandemonium and a full blown riot happened.

We ran back to the Bow and chilled. Our friend's face and eyes were fucked up from the pepper spray. He had to go into one of the tattoo shops on the strip to try an wash it out with the water they gave him. But he still was a bit fucked up. Things were getting crazy. We just wanted to go out, have dinner, and go home. And then more and more police rolled in. And they began to clear out the entire strip. The guys were peeking own the street and said that there were over a hundred cops at this point, in lines in full riot gear, both Weho Sherrifs and Beverly Hills cops and LAPD. They were in riot gear and armed with grenades, guns and more. Scary shit. And they were marching in our direction.

The rainbow decided to close down then, leaving us on the street. Ghetto birds were circling overhead, their lights and infrareds trained in our general direction. It was like we were trapped inside an episode of America's most wanted. Things began to get surreal.

And then the line of cops arrived. The sheriffs in their combat helmets and armed to teeth swarmed into the driveway so we slipped back into the rainbow hoping they would just leave us be, Hoping to be able to just go home. But then of course, they came in. and told us that they were closing everything down and it was all over on the strip tonight. if we were leaving we had to leave now or be trapped in there til their sweep was complete which could be hours. We told them where our car was - [ast the line of cops, and asked if we could get to it. The sherrifs were kind. They told us we could, we double checked, they said yes, go now and you can get to the car. So of course we trusted the nice sheriffs. They were actually pretty reasonable to talk to. As they should be. I like the WeHo sheriffs dept.

SO, the six of us emerged from the rainbow to finally get our chance to get to the cars and get out of there! Walking slowly, cautiously and not making any sudden moves we walke past the lines of sheriffs, armed of course, then lines of LAPD/Bev hills cops, then sheriffs, then LAPD etc, and so on and so on. We passed nearly 200 cops, who left us largely unmolested but were starting to stare at us with extreme hatred at this point. We were at the last line, minutes from our vehicles and so happy, when all the shit went down.
"STOP!" we were yelled at, and the nice sheriff at the end told us to go up the hill as LAPD/Bev hills cops descened on our friend who had been pepper sprayed earlier and who was at the front, shoved him against the door of a liquor store and slapped cuffs on his wrists with guns in his back.

Of course we did as the sheriff said and began to make our way up the hill, the remaining ones of us, but that's when the LAPD's behind us rushed us and screamed for us to put our hands in the air throwing us against the wall, weapons drawn on us and I'm freaking the fuck out. Cops in New Zealand don't carry guns. I've never had a weapon waved my way in my life and here I have probably a hundred cops in my back, rifles ready to fucking blow my head off if I make the wrong move! We are swarmed by them and a male officer barks at me, shoves my purse off my shoulder to the ground takes my hands behind my back and snaps a pair of handcuffs around my wrists. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. The copters are hovering above with lights trained on us we are definitely in an episode of most wanted right now. The cop is screaming at me to spread my legs and puts his hand on me. It freaks me out and I ask him politely for a female officer but with some desperation in my voice I'm sure. I don't know what these guys are going to do, they've already got us in cuffs for doing what the sheriff told us to do I don't know if he's going to try and pull something else or what. He radios for one and asks for my ID. I tell him it's in my purse to get it and i will tell him where it is. He keeps yelling at me to face the walll. I am facing the wall. He gets my ID and will not believe that I am 25. The female officer is kind and I like her except for when she shoves her hand up my bra, that's a bit friendly. She searches me thoroughly and I feel violated but I guess she is just doing her job. Whatever. Dude asks if I have any knives or contraband in ym purse he should be worried about. I tell him no. They check anyway, hoping to nail me for something. But of course I have nothing. I was just out getting dinner bro.

So we are standing there cuffed against the wall like common criminals while others walk by getting away scot free. Finally they take us to a cop car, The other two girls are in the back with their cuffs off. But my cop seems to want to leave mine on. THe sheriff convinces him to take them off I am grateful. but that's short lived as I am thrown in the back of the car with the other two and left for dead for a couple hours.

We don't know what the fuck is going on. nobody does it seems. Cops are taking pictures of the chaos and I think us, with their phones, probably facebooking them or whatever. Maybe even twittering. jerks. And we all need to pee desperately.

We don't know where our guys are. But we see more people getting to walk down the street and the cops not moving a muscle. I am outraged by the injustice of all this. But it doesn't do me any good. We chat in the cop car careful not to say anything stupid aware tht they're probably listening to every minute.


Eventually the sheriffs and cops all meet up and have a pow wow. We catch certain sheriffs looking and try to give them the puppy dog eyes/ send the LET ME OUT signal. A sheriff comes back to the car an ignores us looking for something in the front. One of the girls says something like "sorry are we invading your car"
and he says yeah I've got to figure out how to have you univade it.

He looks tired and not entirely pleased to have three girls who look like they're barely 18 sitting in the back of his car.And he has no idea why we're in here. We see some of the guys get let out but we're still locked up in this car. This is getting stupid.

Finally some other cops come in and question us for a final time and cut us loose. We go quickly towards the car worried that our friends have been locked up. Luckily everyone is there but Mr Pepper spray. FUck. We pile in the car and get out of there before the cops can get us again. Apparently they were trying to get us on a '148' or something, for crossing the line of scimmage. Those LAPD wanted to take us downtown and keep us there. But the sheriffs intervened. THe reason we had crossed the line was because THEY TOLD US TO. But of course while they had communicated that to the whole WEHO sheriffs dept, they hadn't commnicated it to the LAPD/BEV hills cops that had been called in for riot back up. And they were just itching to roll someone. And they picked us. We thought our friend was locked up for sure, but we found out the next day that they had finally let him go but his had been a bit more of an ordeal than ours. He had been picked out as an 'agitator' of the riot because of the pepper spray incident. Things got really crazy. I was kind of in shock from being shackled up after that and police cars still make me a bit jumpy, but hey now I'm in San Diego for the weekend chilling at a resort by the beach with my friends things don't seem so bad. It all feels so far away. But I will never believe a policeman again in my life.

Anyway thta's my story, I had to tell it because no one else would, and what I've read in the papers etc doesn't even come close to telling it like it was. I have videos and photos I might put up if I wasn't scared they'd come and take me away for putting them up! But I think now it's time to go relax in the hot tub in the sun and forget all about America's Most Wanted


xox

Pandie



Wanna start a riot?