Pensacola Melee On YouTube

Florida Pensacola A day at the beach ends with a crowd of people pepper sprayed by sheriff's deputies.

by Debbie Williams

Published: Tue, April 29, 2008 - 4:52 pm CST

Escambia County Sheriff Deputies had to use pepper spray to break up a crowd of about a thousand people over the weekend on Fort Pickens Road in Pensacola Beach.
Deputies describe the crowd as aggressive and mob-like but some of the people int he crowd say it was police that crossed the line. Video of the clash is now making the rounds on the Internet.
He's the star of one of the video clips now making the rounds on the Internet. "As you can see he got his had around my neck right there walking me through the crowd I'm in handcuffs the whole time." Sitting in his sisters living room, Cordarro Locke watches as he is arrested by deputies. He says they over-reacted. "I guess they wanted somebody to harass but we weren't doing anything we were just all just standing around looking around we had some people playing we had people talking."
What was suppose to have been a day of fun in the sun, ended early with fights, arrests, pepper spray and tear gas according to party-goer Darrell Rutledge. "I think it was kind of messed the way the police did the pepper spray and stuff like that there was kids and everything out there and they just sprayed everybody and dropped off bombs."
According to the deputies offense report, they were there for crowd control and to clear traffic. But that wouldn't be as easy at it sounded according to Sheriff's spokesman Glenn Austin, "When we got there there was some fighting going on as soon as we got there we tried to break up the fighting then more people got involved and hitting on the cops that were there the deputies were getting struck it was a matter of survival for the deputies at that point."
Locke disagrees, "As you can see on the video nobody bothered them if that was the case they would have grabbed them when they walked me through the crowd choking me. Everybody was just concerned knowing how I was doing."
Four other people were arrested in the weekend clash. Charges ranged from obstruction of justice to resisting arrest.
What happened over the weekend has been called frightening and embarrassing and that maybe the only thing everyone can agree on.

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