Was anyone else out at Dave's Pub tonight? That got a bit out of hand.

HowardD11 Wrote:Was anyone else out at Dave's Pub tonight? That got a bit out of hand.

OK . . need a story . . . .

Bump

I was there from about 6:30 or so until around 10:30 -- it was getting packed and very rowdy when we left. Birmingham PD aren't the friendliest bunch.

you can read all about it on Boneyard, but here is my take on it:

Dave's Pub had this patio area that opened up to the street. It was full of chanting Pirate fans, just having a good time. A large group of USF fans gathered just on the other side of the patio and began chanting back, there were a few folks jawing at each other, but nothing the crowd wasn't regulating itself. I think it got ugly when a South Florida fan laid a hand on a cop (not violently) and they forcefully arrest him.

I went inside at that point; when about 16 (I tried to count) cars descended on the intersection, and they began arresting anyone and everyone. It was like they were trying to get control of the situation, so they started making examples of people, whether they were causing problems or not.

I got nervous when the cops started to tell folks inside the bar to back up from the windows. One guy shurged his shoulders at a cop through the window and turned around, only to have the 2 cops enter the bar, forcefully arrest him and drag him off.

All in all, it was completely uncalled for. They were arresting people for standing on the street, calling it disorderly conduct. I've never seen anything like it. I heard 26 was the total number arrested.

A friend of mine witnessed another friend get shoved/punched as they were leaving the game by a Birmingham officer. This was the officer's way of breaking up a verbal altercation between USF and ECU fans. When we all got to the car, a friend kicked over some beer cans in frustration, and a horse-back cop came up and told us to pick up the cans (which we did).

My friend tried explaining what had happened (with the other officer shoving/punching people w/o warning) and the horse-back officer brushed it off and basically insinuated that my friend was making the whole thing up. My friend started talking back to the cop (and a second horse-back cop that came) and getting on them about their disconcern for the situation, and as we were pulling away shot them both the bird. They radioed ahead, pulled us over, and arrested my friend for disorderly conduct.

They could've let us keep going back to NC - I was sober and driving, and we were on the way out of town. Instead, they brushed off his story as a lie and then didn't like him talking back to them so they arrested him.

Another side-note about the horse-back cop -- I don't know if anyone here knows much about riding horses, but are you supposed to punch them to keep them in check?? The cop was explaining to me what I had to do to get my friend out and his horse wouldn't stay still, so he literally punched it abuot 3 or 4 times in the back of the head -- and he did this 2 or 3 separate times. Is that the correct way? I'd never seen it before and found it to be a little weird.