ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ‘N’ CROWD CONTROL : Injuries at Concerts Raise Questions

On July 18, Madonna was playing the siren: When she invited 55,000 fans at Anaheim Stadium to swarm around her, thousands surged forward. Four since have filed claims against the city, which owns the stadium, saying they suffered injuries in the crush--bruised ribs, twisted ankles and, in one case, complications leading to a miscarriage.

Less than two months later, at a concert by Echo and the Bunnymen at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, three men were stabbed in a fight over a spilled beer. One was hospitalized with a slashed liver. A 20-year-old man was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

The summer of 1987 has not been otherwise notable for rock-related violence in Orange County, where stadiums held about 80 concerts with a combined attendance of close to 1 million. And even these two incidents are hardly the worst examples of what can happen whenever thousands of people gather in any one place.

But local officials, security managers, fans and parents certainly were reminded of bloodier incidents: a stampede at a 1979 concert by the Who in Cincinnati, where 11 fans were trampled to death; the death of a fan stabbed at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco in 1969 during a concert by the Rolling Stones; gang violence in the summer of ’86 at a Run-D.M.C. concert in Long Beach that resulted in about 40 injuries.

Most arrests at Orange County rock concerts this summer have been for “victimless” crimes: drinking in the parking lot, taking drugs, etc. Still, the number of arrests at Irvine Meadows alone is already up to 247. And the question remains: Are the three stadiums in the county that are used for rock concerts--the third is Costa Mesa’s Pacific Amphitheatre--as safe as possible?

Scott Noble, an 18-year-old from Orange who works in a record store, says he hasn’t “felt any real danger at all” at concerts. “In fact, when I go I don’t think about safety at all. When I go, I might see a fight or two break out, but I don’t ever get into them.”

But on the other side of the coin, Lt. Mike White of the Irvine police, who has done duty at Irvine Meadows, says he “certainly would be very careful before letting one of my kids go to one of those hard rock concerts. I would not let them go without asking around as much as I could about the kind of group they were going to see. Every group draws a different crowd.”

And music is just one source of a crowd’s character. Other safety-conscious questions posed by White and fellow officers include:

-- Is alcohol served?

-- Is seating reserved?

-- How large a security force is on hand?

-- What’s a stadium’s track record?

-- How have the musicians interacted with crowds before?

“Parents know about as much about what goes on at a rock concert as they know about what happens on Mars,” says Irving Goldaber, a Miami-based sociologist who advises stadium officials on crowd behavior. “When people go to a rock concert, they enter a different society. They are a separate nation-states, with their own rules and their own kind of behavior. People are going there to express themselves, and they’re unpredictable.”

Stadium managers around the nation have been learning lessons about crowds and concerts since large outdoor rock gatherings began 20 years ago with the Monterey International Pop Festival.

In Anaheim, they’re still learning.

Madonna also called fans--32,290 of them--to the stage in Seattle on July 15, but that time without incident. Carol Darby, deputy director of Seattle’s King Dome, had learned to press musicians for details about their acts ahead of time.

“I watched and learned that once a group gets up on stage you’re at their mercy,” she says.

Madonna’s managers “told me that she wanted to call people down and I said ‘no’,” Darby says. “I took that position when I negotiated the contract. They said again that this was what she wanted to do, and I said we could negotiate on it. I proposed a compromise--that we would stage it in a very controlled fashion.” Five hundred fans in the first 10 rows were told in advance to run forward when Madonna began her encore.

“It went very smoothly,” Darby says.

Greg Smith, operations manager at city-owned Anaheim Stadium, says the first time he learned about Madonna’s planned gesture was the night of the concert--after ink on the contracts was long dry. He says he tried to stop her, but nobody listened.

Madonna’s personal representatives have either declined comment about the Anaheim Stadium incident or have failed to return telephone calls.

“From now on, we are going to stipulate in the contract that we have rights of approval for anything that the act does,” Smith says. “This whole thing has caused us to recognize that not only do we have to control the fans, we have to control the act. We will ask many more questions.”

As part of the science that has built up around rock crowds, police study the types of people different musicians attract (obviously, Mel Torme appeals to a quieter crowd than does Run-D.M.C), and staffing is adjusted accordingly. Police at all three outdoor venues in Orange County work together with private security firms.

However, increasing security doesn’t assure safety.

Irvine police conclude that the 11 officers at a 1986 show by Echo and the Bunnymen weren’t enough. This year, they added 10 more. But that didn’t help Louis Papa, 25, of Los Angeles, and his friend Manuel Mojica, 27, of San Gabriel.

Papa had just bought a cup of beer and was walking toward his seat with Mojica at Irvine Meadow’s Amphitheater on Sept. 12 when Joseph Martin Gonzales, 20, of Santa Ana, bumped into him. Investigators give the following account of what happened next: Papa’s beer sloshed onto Gonzales; Papa angrily called Gonzales names; Gonzales swung at Papa several times, once with a kitchen knife.

Investigators allege that Gonzales then plunged the knife’s 3 1/2-inch blade into Mojica’s left side. They say he also stabbed a 16-year-old fan from Anaheim who was sauntering by.

Gonzales, arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, is out on bail. Police say they found a second, smaller knife in the possession of a friend who accompanied Gonzales during the incident, a 16-year-old from Garden Grove. He was arrested for possession of a weapon with intent to assault. Mojica, who entered Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo with a serious wound to the liver, has since been released and is recovering.

Police are analyzing the incident for keys to precautions to take in the future. That search, they say, is frustrating.

“They were all drinking quite heavily,” Irvine Police investigator Steve Soto says. Alcohol was just one of several factors that police and stadium managers say they often find woven into trouble that erupts at rock concerts: It occured at that restless limbo when warm-up acts are entertaining, before the main performer appears; somebody was armed; the featured group was one that draws a young, highly energized crowd.

Police and concert managers have long been aware that the lull preceding a main act is the source of many problems. It’s time for tailgate parties. Youths like to gather in the parking lot to enjoy their anticipation, their friends and beer they bring themselves.

Police say alcohol in the parking lots has been barred at all three Orange County venues, and they patrol the lots. Some do so in uniform, others undercover.

But, says officer White of Irvine, “I don’t think we have enough police officers in the county to enforce every violation out there. . . . We just don’t have the forces to do it. We patrol, but they know who we are, and as soon as we go by, they start up again.”

To avoid problems, Anaheim Stadium officials don’t sell alcohol during rock concerts. “It’s simply a problem we don’t need,” says Greg Smith, the stadium’s director of operations. “Why go looking for trouble?”

But both the Pacific Amphitheatre and Irvine Meadows sell alcohol inside the facility during the concert. Officials at the two stadiums say they try to watch for heavy drinking.

They also say they cut off sales an hour before the end of a concert--or even earlier if a crowd is unruly.

Why sell alcohol at all? “People want it,” says Steve Rennie of Avalon Attractions, the exclusive promoter at Irvine. “We don’t indulge people to go beyond their limits. Without anybody asking us to do it, we cut off the beer sales before the headliner starts.”

Rennie did not think the 247 arrests at the Irvine theater did not indicate an unusually severe problem: “Two hundred and forty seven arrests out of 400,000 who have gone through there by the end of the season? That’s not even 1%.”

Goldaber says conversations with U.S. stadium managers have drawn him toward the “impressionistic estimate” that roughly 2% of the people who attend rock concerts carry some kind of weapon--and he says it is also his impression that an increasing number of stadiums are using metal detectors and pat-down searches at their entrances.

John Krusas, director of security at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which presents 15-20 concerts annually at a stadium across the Hudson River from New York City, says he thinks Goldaber’s weapons estimate is reasonable. He says his security officers use hand-held metal detectors to check fans entering his concerts--15,000 to 20,000 people for a popular performance.

Officials at Orange County’s outdoor concert venues do not use weapon-detection devices to check fans at the gates. Officers and managers say they don’t think enough weapons are being carried into local concerts to warrant it--but they acknowledge that it might be a good idea.

One measure that local concert officials say they have taken--for profit as well as for safety--is reserved seating--selling tickets for particular seats rather than on a first-come, first-served basis. All seating in Anaheim is reserved, as it is in Long Beach. The amphitheaters in Irvine and Costa Mesa offer a mix of reserved and general admission.

Reserved seats cost 20% or more than general admission, but they also make for calmer fans by giving them a claim to a piece of turf, precluding a competitive, aggressive race for the seats.

But again, security does not always equal safety. Officers at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, a frequent destination for rock fans from Orange County, used metal detectors and pat-down searches on about 14,000 fans who attended a sold-out, reserved seat Aug. 17th, 1986, concert by the New York rap group Run-D.M.C. But management did not know that dozens of gang members from around Los Angeles had stuffed wooden broomstick handles down inside the sleeves of their jogging suits. Once inside, the gang members stripped off the outer garments to reveal their street clothes--and colored bandannas signifying gang affiliation.

At about 9:30 p.m., the arena’s lowest level erupted into violent melee after a fight started between members of rival gangs. Before it was over, 40 people were hurt. Some were stabbed with chair parts that had been broken off.

Since then, according to a spokesman for the facility, “we work with the fire department, the police department, . . . and if we all don’t agree that we can do a concert with 100% safety, then we don’t do it.”

Still, the spokesman admits, “We don’t want this to turn into an armed camp . . . (and) beyond the intelligence and the effort to screen who comes in, there isn’t a lot you can do.” SECURITY STATISTICS PACIFIC AMPHITHEATRE Costa Mesa ALCOHOL SALES: Yes. SEATING: 18,500 (10,000 general admission, 8,500 reserved). 1987 CONCERTS: 29. 1987 ARRESTS: 10. Six were for drunkenness, 4 for disturbing the peace; 2 of those were for fighting. STAFFING: Twenty to 150 private security officers per concert, depending on the attraction. Four to eight police officers, depending on the size of the crowd. Police do not go inside unless called for in an emergency. IRVINE MEADOWS AMPHITHEATRE ALCOHOL SALES: Yes. SEATING: 15,000 (10,000 reserved seating, 5,000 general admission). 1987 CONCERTS: 41. 1987 ARRESTS: 247 arrests, most of them for drinking and drugs. STAFFING: Twenty to 150 private security officers per concert, depending on the attraction. Eleven to 21 police officers, depending on the size of the crowd. Police do not go inside the stadium unless summoned. ANAHEIM STADIUM ALCOHOL SALES: None at concerts. SEATING: 73,000 maximum. No general admission. 1987 CONCERTS: 4. 1987 ARRESTS: 15-20, mostly for drinking. STAFFING: Roughly one security guard and one police officer for every 1,000 audience members. Private and municipal police work inside and outside the facility.