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Mountain View police made a total of eight drug- and alcohol-related arrests in and around Shoreline Amphitheatre over the weekend, most of them for the suspected sale of drugs including LSD, cocaine, heroin and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
The arrests, which started on Saturday afternoon, June 3, and continued through Sunday afternoon, coincided with two back-to-back performances by Dead and Company, described by the concert venue as a “John Mayer-fronted Grateful Dead spinoff band.” Most of the suspects arrested were either transient or not from the area.
The first arrest was around 5:15 p.m. on Saturday, prior to the start of the first concert, when officers allegedly spotted a 22-year-old man from Covina, California, selling drugs. Officers searched the man, identified as Christopher Resue, and found he was in possession of 40 grams of mushrooms, 15 grams of what appeared to be cocaine, $1,000 in cash and a digital scale, according to police spokeswoman Katie Nelson. Resue was arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession for sale.
Two hours later, police found another man who was having “extreme difficulty” walking through one of the parking lots. Officers approached the man, identified as 23-year-old transient Jesse Del Rossi, to see if he was okay and found he was in possession LSD and several hundred dollars in cash, Nelson said. Rossi was also arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession for sale.
Around 8 p.m., officers spotted 41-year-old Santa Rosa resident Milton Heger allegedly drinking alcohol in the parking lot, which is a city code violation. Officers reportedly found him in possession of 10 grams of heroin, strips of LSD and 2 ounces of marijuana twice the new legal limit for recreational pot, Nelson said. Heger was arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession for sale.
The arrests continued into early Sunday morning. Police received reports around 2:25 a.m. that a man ran through barricades intended to keep people out of the venue after hours. The man, 36-year-old transient David Owenby, allegedly tried to get into the venue and became “aggressive” when Shoreline staff tried to stop him. When officers stopped Owenby, he reportedly spoke “very quickly and rambled in sentences that did not make sense,” Nelson said. Owenby’s pupils were also extremely dilated, according to police.
Officers waited with Owenby for over an hour to see if his condition would improve, but he continued to be aggressive towards officers, Nelson said. Owenby was eventually arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance and transported to Santa Clara County jail.
On Sunday afternoon, prior to the second show, police arrested two men who were allegedly working together to sell LSD to concert patrons. Both suspects, 37-year-old New York resident Kevin Lamanna and 22-year-old Arkansas resident Chris Bollman, were both detained and later arrested for possessing and selling a controlled substance, as well as conspiracy to commit a crime, Nelson said. Lamanna had a no-bail warrant out for his arrest in North Carolina.
Another suspect, 26-year-old Christopher Penn, was arrested Sunday afternoon for allegedly selling what appeared to be doses of LSD. Officers detained Penn, whose city of residence is unknown, and later found that the doses of LSD were not real, Nelson said. Penn was arrested for selling fake narcotics.
Law enforcement at the concert was primarily focused on stopping the sale of drugs particularly LSD which is consistent with past enforcement efforts by the city, Nelson said. The Mountain View Police Department did not commit additional officers to patrol Shoreline Amphitheatre, but added that police were “very, very busy” over the weekend.
“It’s no secret that, unfortunately, some take these concerts as opportunities to commit criminal activities that could potentially harm others,” Nelson said. “While most concert-goers do not cause a problem, some take advantage of the large crowds to sell narcotics, even in the presence of children.”
60,000 attending Dead shows and ONLY 8 drug arrests! That’s the real news story.
As much as the media might want to portray it otherwise.
Way less violence & drunkenness than country shows.
“John Mayer-fronted Grateful Dead spinoff band.” REALLY?
After the Shoreline hosted the Grateful Dead since it opened in 1986, and they were and still are one of their sellout/every time performers, I doubt seriously that someone of position said that of Dead and Company!
Tear down Shorline..it draws troublemakers and showcases B list acts, not something to be proud of. A full service hotel with golf course views and space for small confernces would be a much better use of tha location.
“It’s no secret that, unfortunately, some take these concerts as opportunities to commit criminal activities that could potentially harm others,” Nelson said. “While most concert-goers do not cause a problem, some take advantage of the large crowds to sell narcotics, even in the presence of children.”
Rather telling that @RAZE SHORELINE is incognito – what a stupid statement…..
As a Dead Head for going on 47 years, I and my sweeties attended the Saturday night concert and it was terrific! Superb music, great crowd, good staffing and law enforcement (we had no clue that 8 arrests were made). Fully agree that 8/60,000 is pretty damn good (probably more arrests in a town of similar size), and that Dead concertgoers are way more peaceful than country music concert goers (it was amusing to see the Police presence at the 1st Dead concert in Las Vegas; many riot police with absolutely nothing to do. When they ordered the crowd to move one way, the crowd moved that way. When they ordered them to move another way, the crowd cooperated. All litter was picked up – the venue was spotless after the concert.
Me thinks they were used to brawls and fights at country music festivals……
Agree with @MEMBER – no one in the audience at either concert though this was a “John Mayer-fronted spin-off band”! But I will say that Mayer filled the Jerry guitar position nicely, blending very well with the other band members.
We also visited Shakedown Street for about 3 hours on Sunday afternoon, and it was great. Kudos to the MV police for focusing on more serious issues – the 99.9% of concert goers who simply enjoyed the music and environment were not impacted by their helpful presence.
People are coming from all over the state and country to sell drugs at these concerts, this is a public safety hazard. These drugs need to be kept out of our city. I agree that the Amphitheatre needs to be shutdown. Since the stadium opened in Santa Clara, only B-list and worse acts (such as “John Mayer-fronted Grateful Dead spinoff band”) have played here. These shows provide no value to the city or its residents.
Shut it down.
None of these people are selling drugs to children, and most are not doing anything harmful to anybody, including them selves.
Sure, heroin/coke is no good at all. But it’s frankly pretty evil to say that they should tear down an entire venue that supports hundreds of peoples lively hoods to attempt to stop this. Get the fuck over it. Your town is honestly a shithole filled with fascist, bored police officers and annoying snobby tech employees regardless, if anything the dead heads are making it better.
So much ignorance in the “shut shoreline down” posts, I don’t know where to begin. Dead & Co are hardly B list. I’d explain….but why bother. They sold out Shoreline for TWO nights, you do realize that right?
Props to google for letting us use their bikes though, you guys are MVPS for sure.
There have been some remarkable shortsighted and poorly informed comments here. @Juan, you said “These shows provide no value to the city or its residents.”. You may have overlooked a few things. 1) 60,000 tickets were sold and were subjected to state and local taxes. 2) People come from out of town with money to spend. That sells food, lodging, car rentals, etc., putting revenue and taxes into the community. 3) These concerts don’t put themselves on. That requires dozens union stagehands, truckers, dozens and dozens of employees of the facility. Do you want these folks to be unemployed? I live in Chicago, a grateful dead friendly town. The grateful dead played their last 2 shows there in 1995. In 1995 when the city drafted the budget for 1996 it included $10 million from Grateful Dead tax revenue and in 1996 when the revenue didn’t come because the band broke up, the Chicago park district was short $10 million. That was 22 years ago. Can you imagine what that means in today’s money? These events pumped millions and millions of dollars of taxes and revenue into the community and the state. And you say it has no value because of 8 idiots. That sort of thinking is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.