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Dec 15, 2008 6:19 pm US/Central
Organizers: Kwanzaa Fest Issues Won't Happen Again
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Officials with the City of Dallas are promising that there will be no repeats of the kind of crowd control issues that marred Saturday's "Kwanzaa Fest", just outside Fair Park.
During the CBS 11 News 6pm newscast viewer's watched live video of police using pepper spray and other techniques to break up gangs of youth.
Monday afternoon most of the exhibits from the holiday event had been torn down and there was little evidence left from the two-day event.
The unruly incidents didn't happen on state fair property, but just across the street; as young festival goers left a concert.
"There is no excuse for what happened on Saturday night," said Ernest Gurulé with Dallas Fire Rescue. "The promoter had a responsibility in this and things clearly got out of hand. That is not going to happen again."
Officials with the Dallas Parks Department, along with the Dallas fire chief, have met with Kwanzaa Fest founder and promoter John Wiley Price. All of the parties involved agree that, at future events, concert goers will be kept separate from health screeners and commercial vendors.
"Basically we've just got to separate the entertainment venue from the rest of the venues," Price explained.
"In the future we're going to make sure that we control the situation a lot better," Gurulé assured.
In addition to keeping attendees separated, it's also being suggested that concert times be staggered; so large groups won't leave a venue at the same time.
Another suggestion recommends that more security personnel be staged in parking lots outside the automobile building to keep crowds, made up mostly of young people, from growing and spilling out into the streets.
"Sometimes the dynamics of crowds is the tricky portion, you know?" Dallas Fair Park Manager Daniel Huerta detailed. "Crowds running and stuff is really not the type of activity that we would like to see."
All of the overseeing parties agree on one thing - the blemish the crowd issues gave to the event should not overshadow the positives that Kwanzaa Fest brings, like the more than 22,000 health screenings that might otherwise never take place. "They save lives," Price said of the event.
Organizers are already preparing for next year. But there will be another security variable in the mix in 2009, when a new Dallas Area Rapid transit station opens at Fair Park.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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