Grand Park New Year’s Eve Bash for 2014 must be cancelled right away to avoid a repeat of this year’s scary Downtown chaos…except on a much, ahem, “grander” future scale.
The many street gangs of L.A. even now are preparing to stake out their territorial claims at the next Grand Park New Year’s Eve party, which stands to attract five times as many L.A. denizens as the first one this week.
This time the city dodged a New Year’s Eve Downtown bullet.
Next time they might not be as lucky.
You are invited to read here, exclusively, what actually ensued at the much-ballyhooed Grand Park New Year's Eve bash that embarrassingly laid a huge Downtown egg by catching the paltry security forces way unprepared for the monstrous turnout.
Twenty-five thousand alcohol-fueled revelers were crammed together in a limited park space (with another 25,000 shut out, very disappointed would-be revelers who found themselves shunted off to the side streets encircling Downtown Grand Park.
This covered an area that ought to comfortably hold perhaps one-fourth the number attending this free-for-all that falsely was called a “success” by the Los Angeles Times.
The Times glosses over the Grand Park partygoer chaos, merely conceding party organizers were caught “off-guard.”
This sadly lacking LAT story below by two still wet-behind-the-ears reporters bewilderingly contradicts itself: The Grand Park gates were closed before 10:45 p.m., say the Times reporters. This helter-skelter story then goes on to report that the gates were closed “before midnight.”
JWALSHCONFIDENTIAL was there when the event actually took place, around 10:30. Long before midnight.
Public entry to the less-than-year old Grand Park was not barred by the event organizers, as the Times story would have you believe…but by the Fire Marshal from the LAFD.
The erected gates were slammed shut to the angry and confused public against the wishes of the organizers who took their orders from the city and county politicians.(VIPs, of course, continued to enjoy all-night, in-and-out privileges!)
While the many food trucks inside the park quickly ran out of food well before midnight, the ubiquitous beer sellers (all of them unlicensed to sell alcohol!) on the scene continued to sell plenty of beer. Rampant drunkenness abounded at the Grand Park New Year's Eve festivities. (Carding was infrequent. Kids were sold beer while competing dope dealers brazenly circulated among the throng.)
The great LAFD fear was a penned-in crowd spurred into a stampede that might result in multiple injuries, some fatal.
A few crucial questions were left unanswered by the highly-disappointing Times story mashup.
Such as:
• How many Grand Park partygoers were arrested?
• How many Grand Park partygoers departed the party scene by ambulance!?
• How many Grand Park partygoers were treated for drug overdose at the seriously inadequate makeshift, hastily-improvised First Aid station?
• How many Grand Park partygoers found themselves assaulted by gang members
• How much severe damage was done to the grass that night at Grand Park by the trampling of 50,000 feet?
A similarly chaotic scene happened in the Eighties at the same Downtown environs during Mayor Tom Bradley's “Street Scene” celebration, forcing its permanent cancellation.
How much will it cost L.A. City and County taxpayers for the extensive cleanup and repair tab caused by the devastation from the “un-expected” horde of at least 25,000 that descended upon the unprepared Grand Park?
When the situation turned sufficiently hazardous, Times reporters became so frightened for their own safety that they swiftly departed the immediate scene of the Grand Park party mess… afraid to get close enough to the “melee” to accurately report the hazardous goings-on?
How much adjacent Downtown wee hours looting and vandalism took place once the bash broke up a 12: 30 a.m. Wednesday?
Shouldn't the Grand Park Party organizers have realized that the MTA Board's granting of free bus and rail rides all night long and into the early morning hours of the first day of the New Year constituted an open invitation that would inevitably lead to potentially dangerous Grand Park overcrowding…or worse?
How many were injured outside the suddenly-closed gates, trying to get inside during what the Times story, in self-contradictory terms, describes as “a small melee…of about 500 people”?
Notice that the Times story, reprinted in its entirety below, reports that the LAPD Watch Commander of Central Division, Sgt. Mark Wright, remained totally “unaware” of half a thousand angry would-be Grand Park partygoers crashing the open-air public wing-ding?
Where were the LAPD and LASD cops and their commanders when all hell finally broke?
Likewise, top party organizer Howard Sherman, chief operating officer of the Music Center, claimed to the Times that he “heard no reports of security issues.”
Huh, Howard?
Obviously, since no Times reporters were on the scene when the situation got out of control, these newshounds found themselves forced to rely for their news story instead on an extremely shaky account given by a carefully selected passerby.
Laughably, the duo of Times reporters Saillant and Schaeffer totally believed the slanted impressions delivered by this allegedly impartial eyewitness named Michael Trujillo,who, in a violation of journalistic ethics, is not identified in the article as he should have been!
This Trujillo guy just so happens to be an ex-political consultant of (guess who?) Councilman Jose Huizar who was unceremoniously fired by the same Huizar under sexual harassment investigation when the gentleman-in-question, Mr. Trujillo, threatened in print to shoot a political rival in the head. A reliable news source? (Visit the Mayor Sam blog for lots more background color on Michael Trujillo.)
Simply Google Michael Trujillo and Jose Huizar for all the gory details that were contained in a past LAT story that the editors at the Times apparently no longer recall?
This poorly-planned New Year's Eve party truly turned out to be a civic open- air abortion waiting to happen!
Because the Tribune Corp. is a major player in the high-stakes L.A. Downtown speculative real estate market, you may expect only insufferably upbeat Downtown news stories with all the negative elements dutifully excised by orders emanating from the L.A. Times’s Lone Publisher Eddy Hartenstein and his faithful Indian companion, Editor-in- Chief, Mr. Davan Mararaj. Both, after all, are nothing more than a couple of highly-paid employees of the same Tribune Corp., headed by Chairman Ligouri, and tasked to cover up the news as well as report it.
An honestly-reported story about the Grand Park New Year's Eve party fiasco could have resulted, ultimately, in the lowering of Downtown real estate values that would have indirectly financially damaged the Tribune Corp. Spring Street holdings.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-grand-park-new-years-eve-20140101,0,2746796.story#axzz2oyqeqeqb
The Times’s headline: Grand Park New Year's Eve bash called a success
Los Angeles' inaugural push to stage a New Year's Eve bash rivaling those in other major cities became so crowded that organizers shut down the gates before midnight, leaving thousands to watch the show from side streets.
An estimated 25,000 revelers jammed into Grand Park in downtown to hear DJs spin electronic beats, to browse art installations and to pose for photographs in front of brightly-lit fountains, said Howard Sherman, chief operating officer of the Music Center, which helped organize the event.
The star attraction was a colorful 3-D light show projecting images of flowing water, bouncing balls and psychedelia onto the side of City Hall.
But the huge turnout appeared to catch organizers off guard. Food trucks ran out of their wares early and people grumbled as they stood in long lines to buy beer. As midnight approached, a small melee broke out as a crowd pushed against closed gates.
Michael Trujillo, a downtown resident, said he was attempting to enter Grand Park around 10:45 p.m. when a crowd of about 500 people at 1st Street and Broadway began chanting, demanding to be let in.
Security guards in yellow jackets were trying to hold back the line, he said, informing people that the park was at capacity and had been closed by a fire marshal. But the crowd grew more agitated and rushed the gate, he said.
“There were maybe four security people and they just broke right past them,” said Trujillo, a political consultant. Some people fell down during the rush, he said, and police cruisers responded in force.
Once the party crashers got into the park, things calmed down, Trujillo said. Los Angeles police Sgt. Mark Wright, watch commander of the Central Division, said he was unaware of the faceoff.
Sherman said the event may be expanded next year.
“We have a really, really good problem,” he said. “We hoped this is what it would turn into in years to come.”
Revelers from all across the county made for a diverse crowd with a warm vibe, said Sherman, who likewise heard no reports of security issues. “It really did look like all of Los Angeles,” he said. “It was an unbelievable evening.”
Organizers said they hope the event will become a tradition for the city, where past attempts at centralized celebrations have fallen flat. Trujillo, who decided not to wade into the crowd, agreed, but said changes need to be made.
“The good news is it was at capacity and became a destination, which for Angelenos we've never really had,” he said.
catherine.saillant@latimes.com
Mr. Walsh may be contacted at WWW.HOLLYWOODHIGHLANDS.ORG and JWALSHCONFIDENTIAL.WORDPRESS.COM
