By Russell Jordan I was asked on Twitter to send my story to this email, so here it is. My Twitter handle is @RussaldoAO. My name is Russell Jordan; I am the president and founder of the American Outlaws Davis chapter. Myself and seven other American Outlaws Davis members made the drive from Davis to Pasadena for the Gold Cup Final this past Saturday. Upon arriving to the stadium, roads were blocked to get to lot H, the lot where the American Outlaws tailgate was being held, so we were told to drive all the way around the other side. We then had to ask three different staff members how to get to lot H and about half way through the drive around the stadium we were told by police to turn back because lot H was closed. This whole ordeal took about 20 minutes and could have easily been avoided if once lot H was full, it was told to the people at the entrance gate. Finally after parking, we walked to the tailgate to the loud chants of “CULERO” (loosely translating to “ass hole” or “jack ass”) from the Mexico fans, many of them running up to us and putting their flags and noise makers within inches of our face. We walked around half of the parking lot to find the tailgate and only saw one pair of police officers walking around. Once we found the tailgate and finally settled in, we noticed that we were completely outnumbered and surrounded. Mexico fans kept running through our tailgate, or coming up to members with the noisemakers and starting shouting and pushing matches. About 30 minutes in, as we were all standing around talking, I looked up to see a glass bottle of beer flying straight for my friends head. Another American Outlaws member reached out his hand and deflected it and the bottle struck my friend in the back. I say this is lucky only because the bottle did not strike him in the head. If it had, I’m sure he would have had to go to the hospital. Things calmed down for the next half hour. We decided to walk around and noticed that there were nice Mexico fans who wanted to take pictures with us and wish us luck in the game. Upon arriving back to the tailgate, we noticed that about eight police officers had moved into the area, even though they should have been there in the first place. There were more bottles, cans, and other objects thrown into our tailgate, and more clashes of pushing and shouting matches. I was informed by an American Outlaws Seattle member via Twitter yesterday that in one of these clashes a member was hit in the face with a Jack Daniels bottle by a Mexico fan. Where was the security? When we marched to the stadium a few hours later, we arrived at an open gate and were told that we couldn’t enter through that gate with no given reason. There were about 200-300 USA fans pinned in a corner. As we moved to the next gate over, I led the pack and asked the woman in charge of security of that gate if we could get in. I was informed that it was a handicapped entrance only and we would have to get in line. I told the woman that for security reasons it wouldn’t be wise to cram us in line with the Mexico fans. She told me that if she let us in she would be fired, and if we are attacked, we should just “sue the police.” I don’t want to say who should or shouldn’t be hired to work at these events, but I can say that it was very obvious this woman had no interest in keeping us safe and was merely there to collect a paycheck. I ushered the USA fans into line where I witnessed about five fights while waiting to get to the entrance gate. I saw USA fans, including women and children, pushed, verbally harassed, and spit on. I want to make this a huge point. As I walked into the stadium, the person checked my ticket, and let me in. There was no pat down, no metal detector, no wand, not even a bag search. He checked my ticket and said, “Go”. I could have brought a knife, a firearm, a bomb. Really anything I could have fit into my bag or hid on my person would have gotten into that game with me. When we arrived to our section, it was riddled with Mexico fans. The section was supposed to be US supporters only, or at least that’s what we were told. Every single section surrounding us was 99% filled with Mexico fans. We were sitting ducks. As the game went on, we were pelted with anything you can imagine. At one point I was hit with a blowup sex doll. My friends were hit with coins, bottles, and beer. One of the USA fans in our section got hit with a bottle flung in from who knows where and turned to a security guard to complain about the lack of action, the security guard stood up on a higher seat, towered over the man and screamed “Turn around and watch the ********ing game!” I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. Turning and looking up at the crowd all I could see between things flying at my head, were fights. I witnessed a USA fan walk past our section, face bloodied, barely walking, as if he was in a war zone trying to get his self to safety. Finally, a security guard spotted and helped him. The main issue I have with the whole day is what happened to our female members. One of them was sexually harassed and groped. This I will not stand for. I would gladly take a bottle to the face to make sure that this NEVER has to happen to any female fan, ever. After the game, my friends and I got out of the stadium as fast as possible. I know that US Soccer is not at fault for what happened on Saturday, but I do know there are things you can do to make sure it does not happen again. After putting my story on Twitter I received messages from people about their horrible experiences at the stadium as USA fans. One girl who went with her father had to leave at half time from being attacked and having beer poured on them. I truly feel sorry for those USA fans that weren’t in our large group; they must have been like a piece of meat to a pack of wolves. They was very little security help, and the security guards did pretty much the bare minimum. My question is how long until someone is killed, or a girl is raped. These things seem severe but what I witnessed at this game was the precursor to those acts. Some of these Mexico fans have nothing but pure hatred for the USA fans. I know not every fan is bad, but when you’re outnumbered by about 90,000 people, the bad eggs are going to be there in full force. I love soccer, I’ve done all I can to make sure that it grows in this country, and I will continue to support and fight for soccer. But I cannot defend what happened on Saturday, and if we lose fans because of it, I cannot blame them. Please do what you can to make sure this never happens again. No fan should ever have to go through what my friends and I went through on Saturday. If you need anything else from me I will be more than happy to help. Sincerely, Russell Jordan I just thought everyone should read this.
Hmmm, I have to say this is the first ever time I have seen someone whine about not getting unnecessarily searched and hassled at the gate of a stadium. I don't approve of that concept at all. It's too long to actually read the whole thing, but I get the sentiment. I have seen many people who have felt that way at some games. Sometimes from Mexico fans, sometimes from US fans. the USSF is horrible at security, they apply too-heavy-handed approaches to easy situations making them worse usually, but this indicates they also go the other way sometimes with not enough visible security outside to dissuade bad behavior in the lots (that's all they should do, is be visible, but too often they feel they have to go instigate trouble, "trying to help") Not sure why it ended up in a United forum, maybe it's supposed to be in the AO/DC forum? United doesn't play Mexico soon, right?
First and foremost, why is this in the DC United thread? Second, why is this on BigSoccer? Your complaints sound valid and, given what I know about "security" at RFK, utterly believable. Why not bring them up with someone that might be able to make a difference? CSC, DCSEC, Metro police, hell even the Washington Post. Though, um, maybe tone down the "those Mexicans are mean and scary" vibe. EDIT: Just realized this was about the stadium in Pasadena. I read that, but thought surely you weren't posting in the DC United forum about a US Men's soccer game in California. Apparently, you were. While there are less appropriate forums for this, like, say, Benfica, I'm sure there are a number of more appropriate forums too. Find them.
fyi: as noted in the second post, CrimsonChin00 didn't write this. Russell from Austin did and it is making its way around the internet via facebook and a blog where it has also been posted. They are trying to collect reports from other fans who were at the match and had "problems" to send to ussoccer and Grant Wahl and maybe ESPN to help raise attention to the issues faced
loved all the racist comments on facebook--e.g. hire ICE for security next time as well as the plain stupid--blaming LAPD for bad security (someone should tell that genius that the rose bowl is in pasadena, not LA). when AO started i was pretty sure it was a bunch of pu$$ies and this pretty much confirms it.
Hey look, Pat Buchanan wrote a letter too http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/pat-buchanan-attacks-mexicans-over-usa-