Marty Kwedar writes to the Maryland Jockey Club about his Preakness Day:
The Preakness Stakes according to your own official program offers "Marylanders and visitors alike an unrivaled experience." As a person born and raised in Maryland, and currently living in Northern Virginia, I attended the Preakness Stakes this past Saturday as both a Marylander and a visitor. To my extreme and utter dismay, the experience at the Preakness could only have been rivaled by a prison riot at Jessup. As an attendee of multiple Preakness Saturdays, I understand that the infield at Pimlico is no place for haughty gentlemen or dainty ladies. The complete and total anarchy and felonious violence I witnessed on Saturday, however, went beyond the pale. The most disgusting things that happened on Saturday were not the actions of the denizens of the infield, rather it was the inaction, indifference, and willful negligence
displayed by your staff. It is your legal and moral duty to safeguard your patrons, but through your carelessness or willfulness you allowed numerous people to be injured. Indeed, I was told by your own security supervisor in so many words that posse justice was in effect for the day in the infield.
I arrived at 9:00 a.m., the crowd was boisterous as expected and everyone was enjoying themselves. Along with my friends, I set up camp in between emergency exits 6 and 7. As could easily be predicted, around noontime the crowd (largely made up of what appeared to be intoxicated minors) began to feel their oats. Their idea of a good time was to throw beer cans, often full, into the huddled masses on your infield. The initial bursts ended relatively quickly, but another onslaught was clearly imminent. At this point, your security personnel made a series of unforgivable mistakes that, only by the grace of God, resulted in countless serious, but non-fatal injuries.
Had your staff acted quickly and made their presence known in the areas where the unmitigated hurling of dangerous missiles was occurring, perhaps the activity would have died down. Instead, your security staff did nothing. At any one time dozens of dangerous projectiles were flying through the air. Some cans contained little alcohol, others were unopened and full. Even a partially opened can could cause serious injury, a full beer can thrown with great force, however, is unquestionably a deadly weapon. As I stood in the infield in shock at the overwhelming deficiency of a security presence, I saw several of my own friends hit by these cans. The blunt force resulted in serious bruises, cuts, and other trauma.
At this point, at roughly 12:15, with the onset of unchecked deadly assault and battery in public, I felt that it was my duty as a citizen and an officer of the Maryland State Bar to try to stop the throwing because it was obvious that your personnel had no intentions of curtailing the potentially deadly acts passing before their eyes. To this end, my friends and I tried to tell the people around us to stop throwing cans because someone was going to get seriously injured. Our neighbors took our pleas for peace as some sort of battle cry and were intent on using force to silence our pleas for calm. After a half an hour of apparently hopeless negotiation with our fellow patrons, one of our neighbors charged at my party. Another neighboring group attempted to break up the physical fight that had begun. With no security to be seen, there was an open window for these animals next to us to maim anyone who got in their way.
As could be expected, within seconds of the start of the fight there was a serious injury. A man was knocked out cold with a metal crutch. After witnessing this umpteenth act of assault with a deadly weapon that day, I ran to find security personnel. I spoke with a young African American male roughly 5'8" tall with two gold capped teeth and a baseball cap (I identify him as such because I did not have the opportunity to get his name) working on your security staff. He was polite, but did not appreciate the urgency of the situation. I went back to the scene of the fight and saw that there was still violent unrest. I then ran back to the area where security personnel were located. I informed the security worker referenced above along with another security worker that someone had been seriously injured, and that there were individuals continuing violent acts. It was an extremely dangerous situation. I asked to speak to someone who could help us.
A supervisor was called over. His yellow staff shirt said "supervisor" on it. He was a large African American male, about 6'5" with a shaved head and a goatee. I told him that someone was knocked unconscious and that there was an imminently dangerous situation between emergency gates 6 and 7. The supervisor responded by telling me that the problem of the beer can throwing was my own fault because, he said 'You all are throwing these cans.' I explained that I was trying to stop people from throwing cans by trying to verbally reason with them. (Of course I was forced to do so because there was no security presence whatsoever). I further explained that we needed help or multiple people would be seriously injured.
The supervisor's response completely floored me. He told me that my friends and I should "knock out" the troublemakers, and only then security would come and take away the unconscious men, but would not arrest us. He said that he was not there to "baby sit us."
Fortunately, when I returned some of my friends had managed to quell the threat from our violent neighbors. Beer cans, however, continued to be thrown. I was hit twice, once in the right knee with a full beer can, aggravating a previous injury. It has left me limping around to this minute, and the full effects of the assault have not yet entirely been manifested. With no end in site, my friends and I tried to gather our things and leave before one of us was seriously harmed. As we were leaving, the can throwing began to die down. Only then did security personnel arrive at our area. It was too little too late. I had witnessed a score of people injured by the cans. Undoubtedly, hundreds more were injured. The overwhelming majority of these injuries could have been prevented if your security personnel made any attempt to stop the violence.
Saturday was truly a sad day for all of Maryland. It would be wise for your organization to address my concerns. I noticed that your dangerous failures were not reported in the media, and I feel it is important that local and national media outlets hear my story of your intolerable disregard for your own customers' safety and well-being.
