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Avicii concert also had a sexual assault and a beating

As Boston Garden officials pledged to do more to prevent another EDM "mass casualty incident," public-safety officials said they had to deal with more than just several dozen chemically impaired show goers before a June 25 Avicii concert.

At a Boston Licensing Board hearing this morning, police said one woman was sexually assaulted during the concert. A Garden security guard noticed the attack and broke it up, but the alleged attacker "knocked back" the guard and was able to escape into the crowd, a police detective told the licensing board. The victim, who was "incoherent" and so unable to provide much information, was transported to Mass. General for treatment, an EMT who was working the concert, said.

Separately, a Belmont Hill School student who apparently got upset at a friend who couldn't help him find a female acquaintance sucker punched the friend, then began beating him as the friend lay on the ground, police said. The teen was also taken to Mass. General, police said.

As they did at an earlier hearing before the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing, police and Garden officials agreed that 86 people, all between 16 and 25, needed treatment for various levels of intoxication.

Sgt. Det. Robert Mulvey said part of the problem might have been the show was all ages, rather than 18+, which might have encouraged younger teens unable to handle alcohol and other drugs to pre-game too much. He said that although he did not investigate just what the people had ingested, he said many seemed to be in much worse shape than if they had just drunk alcohol.

Michael Bosse, deputy EMS superintendent, said he was concerned that Garden never notified nearby hospitals or the city that they had a "mass casualty incident" going on. Both he and Mulvey responded to the scene after hearing radio traffic about would-be concert goers dropping like flies.

James Mayall, Garden security director, however, said he was in constant contact with a BPD captain who lead a force of 23 other BPD officers at the show that night. He said that based on experiences elsewhere, the Garden had also increased the number of detail EMTs on duty that night and did things such as provide free cold water and cooling rooms for patrons. Garden attorney Stephen Miller said 70% of the people transported to the hospital were stopped before they ever entered the Garden.

The Garden has agreed to training by Boston EMS and the Public Health Commission on how to recognize and treat signs of impairment this fall.

Board member Milton Wright expressed outrage at promoters of EDM concerts. Given the track record of EDM shows across the country, it's time for their promoters to step up and do something, rather than just leaving venues and cities to clean up after them, he said. "People are making so much money off these concerts, they have an obligation [to do something]," he said. "Maybe they ought not to be able to give them. It's ridiculous."

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take.

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Comments

well under 18, on a train, going to the concert. They were all blitzed.

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its easy to blame the promoters, but comeon when it really comes down to its the venues who are taking the risk by booking the concerts.

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Blame can be assigned to multiple parties. I don't know the situation here, but there's no reason to think that because the venue is at fault (and they may well be), that the promoters are therefore not at fault.

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What about the people who were actually drinking/doing drugs illegally? Are they at all to blame?

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In the case of minors, blame the parents who are supposed to be responsible for them

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Many parties can share the blame.

If you invite a bunch of druggies to party at your house, and the druggies trash your neighbor's yard, the druggies are to blame for resulting damage to the neighbor's property.

You may also be to blame if you could reasonably foresee that the druggies would engage in this kind of behavior when you decided to invite them over.

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What if you were to invite 500 people to a huge party at your house....and 1 of them turned out to be a druggie. That 1 druggie needed to be taken to the hospital. Are you responsible because you should have known that inviting 500 people would result in 1 druggie showing up? Should you have cancelled the party? Hired a 20 police officers to patrol your party?

There were at least 12k people at the show, 86 needed to be transported to the hospital, that is less than 1% of the attendees. The Garden staff was able to stop all but 26 of them from getting into the show (according to their attorney, they stopped 70% before entry). Are they really to "blame" for letting .2% of the concertgoers into the arena while drunk/high?

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Actually you can be held responsible as the host of a party. Earlier this year the host of a party was found criminally and civilly responsible in a case where a passenger in a car was killed by a drunk driver.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/03/18/family-of-lynn-crash-victim-wins-2...

The host was charged under the social host law and, I believe, found guilty of that. Received a suspended sentence and probation. The family then sued the host of the party in a wrongful death lawsuit. He lost that case and was ordered to pay a little over 2 million dollars.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if you could be held responsible for that one druggie at your party.

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First, the idiot kids who managed to make the decision to drink/drug themselves into oblivion.

Two, the shitty parents who raised such morons.

Ninety-ninth, the venue for not being able to undo bad decisions and shitty parenting.

Enough with looking for someone else to blame. Shit, I'm only 38 and this blame game stuff has gone from "what did you do?" when I was a kid to "oh, poor thing. what did someone else do to you?" in the span of twenty years.

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