Huge Crowd Riots In Chicago

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32361, 29 July 1970, Page 17

Huge Crowd Riots In Chicago

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CHICAGO, July 28. A free rock music festival in Chicago’s Grant Park erupted into gunfire, stone throwing, and guerrilla warfare between police and young rock fans here last night, United Press International reported. At least three people were shot, and more than SO injured. Police arrested 137 people tn the hours after the outbreak of violence as youths rampaged through the Loop business and finaclal district The police at least 19 were injured were pelted with stones and bottles, and almost anything the rioters could get hold of.

It was the worst outbreak of violence in Chicago since last October’s rampage by the Weatherman faction of the militant Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) and the biggest disorder since the riotous Democratic Party convention two years ago. About 40,000 fans attended the rock festival one of a series organised this summer by Chicago’s Park District as an outlet for the city’s youths during the school vacations The concert broke into chaos after a rock group called “Sly and the Family Stone” refused to perform because of disorderliness among the crowd. The huge crowd had earlier become restless when a group named “Fat Ater” was playing. When the “Sly" group refused to play, fist fights broke out in the crowd and riot police squads were rushed in. Diricted by a hovering helicopter, the riot squad used tear-gas to try to break up

the screaming crowd in the park as young men and girls attacked lines of blue-heleme-ted police. ■ One group of long-haired youths surrounded a group of police and showered them with wine bottles, mud, and pieces of broken glass. As hundreds of police converged on the area and sealed off the main highway bordering Lake Michigan and the surrounding blocks, crowds of youths yelling “kill the pigs” stormed the main park bandstand. At least $15,000 worth of equipment was wrecked and smashed on the bandstand. Other mobs of youths converged oH an adjoining baseball field where some of the fiercest clashes with clubwielding police occurred. Police used batons and dogs to clear the area which was wreathed in clouds of tear-gas. At another spot two police officers drew their revolvers and fired warning shots into

the air when faced with chanting, jeering crowds.

Immediately 50 other policemen followed suit and fired a volley into the air. A senior officer, waving a white flag, ran along the police line and ordered them to stop firing. The policemen were then ordered to fall back At this stage gangs of youths surged into the Loop, yelling and hurling missiles and flares at windows, overturning waste paper bins and smashing lamp-posts. At least two police cars were set alight and crowds of young people prevented the police from dousing the flames. Dozens of other vehicles were attacked and battered with wooden staves and bricks. Several stores were looted, including two jewellery shops where youths helped themselves from window displays. Police formed guard lines round the giant Marshall Field department store but were unable to prevent win-

dows being smashed in six other stores. Boys between 11 years and 16 years of age were seen among the screaming rioters as they battled police and struggled with snarling police dogs. One 14-year-old boy, Robert Johnson, was shot in the chest and was reported in critical condition in hospital. Most of the injured police were discharged from hospital after first aid treatment, but at least six sustained ugly wounds from bricks. At the height of the battle one patrolman who returned to police headquarters after his squad car had been virtually demolished and he had been cut by flying glass, declared: “1 wouldn’t go back there unless I was in a tank ’’ Scores of youths who had been arrested waited on the eighth floor of police headquarters. Many were covered with blood and some showed wounds inflicted by police dogs.