I was at the dead prez show Thursday night and have been a fan of rap/hip hop since the mid 80s.

I arrived at Thursday night's show around 10:00PM. Through the night I saw nothing happen at the concert that was out of the ordinary. I didn't see any of the scuffles that are mentioned in the accounts below. I left at 12:40AM and as I was exiting the CRC I saw a female officer standing and talking with a white man who was seated on the ground. At that moment I wondered what was going on, but I couldn't imagine what would happen later, and was quite surprised to hear the unfortunate news on NPR Friday morning.

As I followed the coverage and heard rumor pile on rumor, and watched as various conversations grew that were built on speculations and one-sided accounts, I became more determined to find out what actually happened. Over the weekend I began talking with as many people as I could to find out what happened and how it happened.

Through this process, I was able to get three written statements from people who watched the events unfold. Each person has given me permission to share their eyewitness account, but none of them has given me permission to identify the writer. I gathered the statements independently from each person and trust that they have written the truth as they saw it. Below you will find the three statements. I think it is very important that these eyewitness accounts be taken into consideration in all further discussions of Thursday night's incident.

Tony Zaragoza