Ice Cube Concert -- Police Seemingly Chose Not To Act To Stop Rioting

After reading the Dec. 27 article concerning the riot following the Ice Cube concert, I feel that some very important information must be noted. I am a 19-year-old witness of this information that led to a situation which frustrated and angered me beyond belief.

I walked out of the Paramount just as a fight was breaking out. I saw people running, heard people screaming, and felt people pushing, trying to move into safety. My boyfriend said to walk quickly, to try to get away before this now two-person fight could turn into a riot.

We walked by a police car and he pleaded with the two policemen in the car to get out and do something before it was too late. He was screaming, enraged first by fear and then increasingly by frustration, as they looked at him and laughed. The police laughed, sitting in the same spot that gunshots were soon to be fired. The police laughed as concert-goers' lives were put into danger. The police laughed as if they were watching a movie. This was not a movie! The running was real. The screaming was real. The bullets shot were reality in its harshest.

The police could have done something, but seemingly chose not to. Their training surely must have taught them the basics of a riot. Police training should have taught them that a riot starts out small, possibly between two people, and then if not stopped, grows larger and larger, until it occupies its very own spot on the front page of the Sunday paper. To stop the violence before it gets out of hand is a policeman's job. The police did not do their job. There is simply no other explanation.

After shots were fired, and people taken away by ambulances, the police could be seen stringing up the "Police Lines - Do Not Cross" tape. Should we be impressed? Was intense training required to properly place police tape? Was the training in how to stop violence suddenly forgotten?

I do not know the answers, but I know that as for myself, any sort of respect or safety I have previously felt in the protection of our policemen was instantly shattered. What has grown in its place is a feeling of bewilderment, vulnerability, and a very important question: If this had happened in their own neighborhoods, with their own children, would they have just sat and laughed, ignoring cries for help? I don't think so. - Eva Barash, Seattle