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00:00Welcome to the whole story. I'm Anderson Cooper. The NFL season began just last month and already there have been a number of viral videos of fights between rival fans, including this one of the Texans Rams game, which left a female fan injured and bloodied after the brawl. It's not just football. Baseball fields, soccer pitches, violent altercations are happening at sporting events all over the country, causing serious injuries, even death in some cases.
00:29It's left many wondering if it's too dangerous to bring their families to cheer on their favorite teams. In this next hour, CNN's Ed Lavendera takes us inside this disturbing dynamic from the stadiums where it starts to the streets where it spreads and talks to both the victims of this senseless violence and the fans who know what it's like to lose control of their emotions when it comes to the game. Some of the images you'll see in this hour may be disturbing.
00:59We are in Detroit, Michigan, and this city is on fire.
01:16We're in the midst of the NFL playoff season, just a few hours away from the kickoff between the Detroit Lions and the Washington Commanders. Huge game.
01:29One of the things that I wanted to explore with this, I grew up a huge sports fan as a kid. I love the Dallas Cowboys. Over the years, as I've gotten older, something's happened. These sporting events didn't feel the same to me. There's just something that was off. And then started kind of noticing what seemed to me to be like an uptick in the amount of fights.
01:57It's really intense. Some have been deadly. Some have left people's lives completely shattered and changed. I wanted to explore whether or not these sporting events are any less or more dangerous. Like what's going on?
02:24Let's go Lions on three. One, two, three. Go Lions!
02:29You don't have any concerns bringing your kids out here?
02:32No, we've seen a few, but they're few and far between. When you see the drama, sometimes there's other teams coming in.
02:38I think we all agree it's sometimes too many cocktails. And then that escalates. And then there's an argument. And then that kind of turns into one, two and three.
02:47Hey, hey, hey!
02:48Is this something that is an epidemic? Or is this just because of the proliferation of social media and everybody has a phone and a camera in their pocket? I think that's a great question and worth exploring. But regardless of whether or not it's gone up or it's gone down, it is happening.
03:05In 2024, 52 professional stadium security officials responded to a survey. 70% of participants said they felt fan behavior was worse now than five years ago.
03:18And fan violence is not just in the U.S. Europe and the United Kingdom are notorious for fans fighting during soccer games.
03:25To understand how moments like that erupt, you have to walk in these crowds. You have to get up close to the front lines as you possibly can. And to do that, I thought of one person in particular, a man, a journalist by the name of Bill Buford.
03:38Bill Buford. He wrote a book years ago called Among the Thugs. He immersed himself in this world of British soccer hooliganism. And he experienced some of the most violent incidents at sporting events in a visceral way.
03:51The first games I started going to were here at Chelsea. It was the shed and there were no seats. And it was remarkably filthy. And you got compressed with every male, bloated human body. So intimate and so powerful, smelly.
04:07There's a kind of magical strength that comes to you when you're a member of a crowd, which is a little bit like going to war. I think you've seen it in American sports.
04:18There's a kind of restless energy and an undefined power.
04:25Now I'm ready to go to work. You know how to handle this. I'm used to this. You know what you're doing. Right. This is all part of the price you pay. I'm built for this.
04:45I grew up with the hometown team. My father used to take me to the games when I was a kid. That was when they played at the old Tiger Stadium over on Michigan and Trumbull. My oldest son, Alexander, he went to his first game at three months old.
04:58That's funny. I grew up a Cowboys fan and my parents would take that against you. I appreciate that. I guess it's just part of like that family history experiences that connect us to these to these sports and these events.
05:10The Lions are part of the fabric of Detroit. If you're a natural native Detroiter, you grew up cheering for the Lions through good, bad, you know, and a lot of bad and a lot of bad.
05:22If this city were to win a Super Bowl, I mean, that would be like world peace in Detroit.
05:27This is Eastern Market. This has always been a very big central area for tailgaters. Typically on game days, this area would be teaming with people.
05:40I mean, it doesn't feel like a playoff tailgate to me out here right now. No, I have video footage when I walked through the market last year during the playoffs. It was a party.
05:50Pat. What happened? Shooting. A man shot into popular tailgating area in Eastern Market. Police say after a confrontation, killing two people.
06:02So it was going all well. Good vibes. Everybody was having fun, drinking, enjoying themselves. And then everything just went left.
06:09As I was going up Wilkins here and got to Orleans, I saw ambulance and police power come. And that's what happened.
06:17That's what happened. One shooting undid all of that. It's got to make you a little sad to see it like this.
06:22It is because coming to the tailgate for a lot of us, particularly when the team wasn't doing well, that was the best part of the game.
06:32I found Lions fan Fahad Youssef tailgating on the other side of Eastern Market.
06:38Eastern Market set to best lifestyle game in the city. Heck yeah.
06:43So you're out here all the time? Every game? Yeah, as of late, this is the spot.
06:49This season has been a little bit rough for you though, right? It's been challenging. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:56What's happened? I had an incident, got my tickets revoked.
06:59You got your season tickets revoked? Yeah, I was season ticket holder, got my tickets taken away because of a small incident on the field.
07:08That incident went viral. Who are you talking to like that? It's a fan.
07:14Youssef was on the field as a perk of his ticket package, which allowed him to choose one add on bonus for the 2024 season.
07:23I was on the field for the Packers game at home and I was just walking past the Packers sideline, talking a little crap, telling them they're going down. We're sweeping them.
07:35The Green Bay Packers head coach saw Youssef taunting his players with a throat slashing motion.
07:41And Matt LaFleur did not like that. He came at me a couple of times. I was having fun. I thought it was all in good fun, but no, he wasn't feeling it.
07:53I got to do whatever I can, get back into the stadium.
07:57300 level, guy not breathing.
08:00Yeah, let's do it.
08:12What is it about a team like this that just brings out this much passion in you?
08:18I mean, a team like this has gone through so much. It's gone through so much adversity.
08:24Let's go. This is what it means, baby. This is what it means. Let's go, baby. Come on. That's your answer right there. That's your answer.
08:36Fahad Youssef says he couldn't help himself once he got close to the rival team.
08:41What made you want to talk smack in that moment to this other coach and the other team?
08:47Other teams, just Packers, biggest rivals are just right there on the other side from me, 10 yards away. So, just talking a little junk to him.
08:56And he gave it back to you a little bit?
08:58Oh, yeah. He was happy. I was having fun. I thought it was all in good fun, but no, he wasn't feeling it.
09:05He was talking junk to our players. I thought it was pretty unsportsmanlike. Like, I've never seen that. I've been on many fields and usually they police that much better.
09:16The NFL does try to do that. In 2008, the league implemented a code of conduct to keep fans from acting out in stadiums.
09:25Violators can be ejected from the game and have their season tickets revoked. Youssef was removed from the field at halftime.
09:33You can't have season tickets anymore? No, I can't have season tickets anymore. Forever? Forever.
09:40Oh, that's got to hurt. It does. But hey, I've made some awesome friends. Like, look at this crew, this support system. Come on. We're still here. We're good to go, baby. Let's go.
09:54Youssef was also banned from attending any NFL games until he took the league's $250 code of conduct class.
10:03Enacted in 2012, it requires fans tossed for unruly behavior to take an online course covering topics like game day empathy, stress management and alcohol abuse.
10:16What kinds of things are they telling you in this NFL class? And it's just like anxiety. Sometimes you can get some anxiety before games and how to control that and binge drinking, which sometimes happens a lot.
10:28Do you think it happens too often? Do you think it happens too often? It does happen too often. Have you stopped and thought about what it is about sports that makes us want to do what you did that day?
10:41You gotta love a sports team. It's gotta run deep, you know, so it brings out the craziness in all of us. Sometimes you have completed the conduct course about a week after the incident on the field.
10:53I got my certificate. You know, I'm a good fan. The certification is a badge of honor. He can now purchase single NFL game day tickets again.
11:02What does it say? A certificate of completion, Ford Field fan code of conduct class. It's kind of opened my eyes to like the bigger picture.
11:12So you pay a little bit more attention to where the lines of good behavior are. Sure, sure. Right there.
11:17Bill Buford knows extreme team identity can trigger extreme behavior.
11:22It's one of the reasons some fans crossed the line.
11:26If you're a Yankee fan and you're going to the World Series and the Dodgers beat your Yankees, you feel that deeply and you're depressed for weeks. It's an engagement with your team.
11:36That's an intense feeling that these sporting events bring out in people.
11:39With a certain kind of audience. Male, certain age, adrenaline, needing to establish supremacy.
11:47This is the Detroit Police Department's real time crime center. We're able to monitor crime in real time. This right here is the nerve center.
11:56It's Detroit Lions game day. I imagine this is a it's a serious night here in Detroit.
12:02Very serious. The Ford Field security is excellent. Second to none. We have well over 100 officers at any given point assigned inside on top of the security officers.
12:13I think that we do a great job here intervening very, very quickly. And I'm not aware of anybody seriously being hurt here at all other than the one incident in our Eastern Market District area.
12:24In that situation, it was the tailgating area for the Lions game. Yes. Yes. What made that situation escalate?
12:31Argument and, you know, individuals having weapons. And one of the things that we did is created areas of gun free zones.
12:37Also, the adding of the high density weapons detectors that right there, we haven't seen any issues since.
12:45When your officers are watching stuff unfold on these cameras tonight, like they know things can go bad very quickly.
12:51They're monitoring. They're monitoring for, you know, elevated voices and they're not going to wait just for the first blow per se.
12:57Even if a little brawl broke out, we're there to break it up so quickly. And it's consequences when you do that.
13:03You don't get a second time to do it because you get banned. You're not going to be back in there fighting again.
13:07We'll put you on a list. Your butt won't be there. How many people are on that list?
13:10You can ask Ford Field. Ask the Lions about that one. We did reach out to Ford Field and the Lions and the National Football League.
13:18In fact, we contacted all four major sports leagues, but they all declined to speak with us.
13:24But I did speak with a Major League Baseball security source, a source who can't speak on camera, but did say fan violence is on the rise.
13:33And the source also added that sports leagues know this is a big problem, but they don't want it to get any attention.
13:40We haven't seen really a uptick of it. You don't think so? I don't know. I think that everything that happens now is captured immediately because everybody has a cell phone with a 4K camera on it.
13:53People pull their camera phones out and it's uploaded to social media immediately.
13:59It's kind of part of the journey that we're on here is trying to figure out what could rise to the level of wanting to create a situation in a scene where you come to blows with somebody.
14:09Turn that shit off.
14:11We are outside Gillette Stadium, which you see behind me. This is home to the New England Patriots, and I think it's safe to say that it's also home to one of the most intense fan bases in the NFL.
14:22It's where Patriots fan Dale Mooney, husband and father of two and a season ticket holder for 30 years, went to the game with friends and never came home after a fight in the stands.
14:40It was a 10 o'clock on a Sunday night.
14:43I met up with an eyewitness at a sports bar across from Gillette Stadium.
14:47This is the video you shot that night?
14:49Yeah. It's right there immediately when I start.
14:52I was up in the 300 section. We were playing the Dolphins, and it was a pretty normal game.
14:57The Patriots were down from what I can remember, which has become typical, sadly.
15:02And I had noticed people arguing throughout the game, but that's common. I didn't think anything of it. Security had intervened a few times.
15:09Mr. Moody, he was kind of heading over to the next section and, you know, willingly engaging in the fight.
15:15And then the other people were kind of, if you want to come over here and do this, let's do this.
15:19And the next thing I know, the fight shifted to the next section.
15:22What were people arguing about? What were they fighting about?
15:24Once I noticed he had a Dolphins shirt and he had a Patriots jersey, it was self-explanatory.
15:29You're three rows away, and this thing is escalating.
15:35Yeah. It was 10 o'clock roughly on a Sunday night, and I think just alcohol time.
15:41At that point, the Dolphins were winning, and I think they were rubbing it in, and somebody just didn't want to hear it.
15:47Were there people trying to break it up, or they're...
15:50I believe the Dolphins fan's friend was trying to pull him off and trying to separate them.
15:55It just looks like a sea of people.
15:57Yeah, I was able to get closer, as you can tell.
16:01And then the final seconds of the video, you can see Mr. Moody slumped over.
16:05We got an EMC coming, 300 level. They're performing CPR right now.
16:09As the paramedics came, people lied him down underneath the seats on the flat surface.
16:13So the paramedics were able to perform CPR.
16:16Do you feel like sporting events are becoming more violent?
16:19I think the drinking, it's becoming an intense atmosphere.
16:23I think the aspect of people gambling on sports betting is definitely contributing to people's anger.
16:29And it's not as much a friendly, ha-ha, you're from a different city rivalry.
16:33It's your team cost me money, and now I can't pay my rent.
16:36It's contributing to higher rage at games.
16:39You come to a sporting event, and you witness someone lose their life.
16:42Yeah, it's not what you plan on, obviously.
16:45Not at all.
16:46It's a mix of a lot of bad things that lead to people making bad decisions.
16:49And I think that's unfortunately what we saw that night.
16:51Dale Mooney's death here at Gillette Stadium was originally ruled a homicide.
16:56But since then, prosecutors have uncovered more evidence.
16:59The autopsy showed that Dale Mooney died of a heart condition, and other video evidence from other cameras inside the stadium that captured the full picture of how it all unfolded.
17:11The stadium video is very clear.
17:13He can focus in really close, so he can see exactly what happened.
17:17My client was just simply trying to defend a friend of his who got attacked by somebody who wasn't involved in the initial fight.
17:24It became pretty clear that they'd probably never, that the government could never prevail at a trial.
17:28I think that became apparent.
17:30We attempted to reach the prosecutor in this case, but never got a response.
17:34The criminal charges against the two men who were originally facing charges for Mooney's death have been dropped.
17:40Do you think that you see a lot of fans that are just looking to pick a fight?
17:44You put 60,000 people into a stadium, you're going to have that one guy that's looking to start trouble. It's statistics.
17:50The drama of witnessing violence close up really agitates the whole psyche and the body and adrenaline, and drinking does have the effect of not suspending the breaks.
18:01We see fights at a concert or a bar, but I think the violence that we see at sporting events is different.
18:07It's almost like a continuation of the sport.
18:09It's whatever's going on in the match and all the frustrations of the match, tragedy of defeat.
18:13You're participating in the game even though you're a spectator.
18:16It is not safe to take your family to the games anymore.
18:21You got to the point when you were writing your book among the thugs. I felt like you got the sense that you could almost figure out when things were about to erupt.
18:31I could see it on his face. Something bad here was going to happen.
18:46Some of the videos that were showed you, the violence at American sporting events. What do you think is behind that?
18:56I think what you're seeing is kind of a contagion of violence.
19:00One of the first really violent incidents that captured my attention years ago happened here at AT&T Stadium.
19:09The Dallas Cowboys were playing the New England Patriots in October 2015.
19:18The Cowboys had just lost that game 30-6.
19:22But there was a sea of fans out here tailgating, eating and drinking throughout the afternoon.
19:41The night ended in a deadly shooting.
19:45I had my back turned. Out out here was a gunshot.
19:48The security definitely needs to be stepped up. People come here with guns.
19:54Victoria Gunning's brother, Richard, went to that game with his fiancee, who was five months pregnant at the time.
20:01One of his friends called and said they had a booth set up out there to come out and enjoy the day with them.
20:08I saw pictures of my brother having fun, everybody out there just having a good time.
20:15Never dreaming that he was going to lose his life that day.
20:20So where did all this go down, Matt?
20:22So we'll pull up right here.
20:25It was a 3 o'clock kickoff.
20:27People start showing up at the tailgate sometime around noon.
20:30Lots of alcohol involved.
20:32You can actually pull onto the grass and that's where people will kind of unload their tailgates onto the concrete.
20:37The defendant, Marvin Rodriguez, and a group of his family and friends were out there.
20:42The victim, Richard Sells, had some loose affiliation with Marvin and his family.
20:48They watch outside. People continue to drink and cook.
20:52As the game is concluding and the sun's starting to go down, Arlington Police Department, who's out there doing security, trying to get people to kind of wrap it up.
21:04Marvin's brother, Candido, who was intoxicated, was not happy about having to leave the tailgate.
21:10And he started a verbal argument, but a large fight breaks out.
21:15CNN obtained dramatic cell phone and police dash cam footage.
21:20It played a crucial role in the criminal trial.
21:23There's several different groups of people fighting.
21:25There are police that are responding to the fight because, at this point, it had been going on for approximately 20 minutes.
21:31A 20-minute fight.
21:32A 20-minute fight.
21:33A 20-minute fight.
21:34I mean, shirts are coming off.
21:35Beers are being thrown.
21:37Piles of five or six people in various different sets of fights.
21:42It's pandemonium.
21:43Marvin is involved.
21:44He's fighting.
21:45At some point, he gets pretty beat up.
21:47He leaves where the skirmish is, and he goes to his car, and he gets a gun, and he comes back.
21:54I can pull out a gun right now, too.
21:56What the ?
21:58Marvin somehow makes his way over to where Richard Sells is.
22:02He goes behind him, kind of wraps his arm around, and sticks a gun to the left side of his neck.
22:09He pulls the trigger at some point as Richard Sells is on one knee.
22:13As the first patrol officer is pulling into the lot, shots are fired.
22:19When a shot rings out, the defendant tried to jump over one of these walls,
22:23and that's kind of where he dropped the gun.
22:25The dash camera actually shows him right after the shots are fired,
22:29and you see Richard Sells on the ground.
22:31The victim was on the ground right over here?
22:33Right here, yeah, in this little lot.
22:35The squad car actually pulls up right here, like at the edge of the street,
22:39and they're trying to block it off so emergency medical personnel can come in and tend to him.
22:44They don't know if he's going to live or die at the point,
22:47and he's being tended to by his wife or fiancé at the time.
22:51And did he die at the scene?
22:52He did go to the hospital.
22:54It was clearly like a very fatal wound.
22:56The shooter, Marvin Rodriguez, was taken into custody
22:59and charged with murder in the shooting death of Richard Sells.
23:03Nobody expects a gun to be pulled out in one of those things.
23:05Like, you fight, you punch each other in the face, and you go home.
23:08I don't think anybody thought that it would go this far.
23:12When the shooter was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison,
23:17did you find justice in that verdict?
23:19Even then, I thought it was a slap on the wrist.
23:23I mean, it's cold-blooded murder.
23:26Our family is destroyed.
23:28I mean, the other tragedy of all this is that your brother had a child who is never going to get to know her father.
23:35That's right. He would have been a great dad.
23:38She lost every opportunity to know what an awesome dad she would have had.
23:48Nine years after the shooter was convicted, sentenced to prison, he got a new trial.
23:54Yes, sir.
23:56In the second trial, Marvin Rodriguez, the shooter in this case, actually put on a self-defense case.
24:03And that actually helped him this time around.
24:05He was convicted not of murder but of a lesser charge of manslaughter
24:09and was sentenced to only 10 years probation.
24:12So he was allowed to go free.
24:14I was shocked, devastated, appalled.
24:19And according to court files, Rodriguez's probation does not prevent him from attending sporting events.
24:27Efforts to reach Rodriguez or schedule an interview with his attorneys were unsuccessful despite repeated attempts.
24:33To make sure I'm clear on this, the fight starts when Marvin Rodriguez's brother throws a beer can?
24:38Yes.
24:39I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but, like, it all just seems so stupid.
24:43It is tragic stupidity.
24:45We see it a lot across the country that these sorts of incidents happen.
24:49In some situations, it could be people who are rival fans, but in this case, everyone was a Cowboys fan.
24:54I think the main factor was alcohol.
24:57You have way, way too much time to be out there.
25:03What do you want people to know about what happened to your brother?
25:06That it is not safe to take your family to the games anymore.
25:10My brother was an innocent victim, viciously murdered.
25:15It's a horrible, senseless shame.
25:25Was I a hooligan?
25:26Yeah, I was.
25:27Well known for having a one arrow.
25:28As we continue on our journey into exploring sports fandom, we had to come to London, England, because this is the origin.
25:45One of the places that has been the most notorious when it comes to the craziest and most rabid of fans.
25:51In January, violent clashes between fans of rival clubs Manchester United and the Scottish Rangers Football Club erupted on social media.
26:06Dozens of soccer fans were arrested.
26:09And then in May, riled up fans left a trail of damage ahead of the Europa League final between Tottenham Hotspurs and Manchester United.
26:19We're on our way to one of the final games of the season for West Ham United here in East London.
26:28West Ham United and its fan base has been involved in some of the more notorious violent incidents in recent years.
26:35Like this huge brawl that erupted in the stands and then went viral during last year's West Ham thriller against rival club Arsenal.
26:52Fan violence appears to be on the rise in the United Kingdom.
26:56According to government data during the 2023-2024 soccer season, there was a 42% increase in public disorder arrests
27:04compared to the season before.
27:07I feel like even in the last year, there seems to have been a resurgence of violence.
27:12Have you seen that?
27:13I don't know if it's a resurgence so much as it hasn't ever really gone away.
27:17The big wake-up call was in the Euros, the 2020 Euros that the final was here in London.
27:24It was a very big moment where England might actually win a trophy.
27:29He says the hysteria combined with pent-up COVID-19 lockdown frustration resulted in thousands of ticketless rabid fans storming Wembley Stadium.
27:44To think that every Saturday, there are these arenas with thousands and thousands of people watching a live game
27:53in which the outcome can reverse in the last minute, in the last seconds.
27:57There might be spoiled chances, there'll be penalty kicks which are missed.
28:00The game itself is so difficult to win and score.
28:03It's different from American sports, which always feel like you're being fed sugar.
28:07This is like, you know, you gotta get there, you gotta get there, and you don't get there.
28:12And that produces so much adrenaline and frustration.
28:18What's happening in the States is different because it's not group violence.
28:22The stuff that I was seeing when I did my own investigation, it might involve 200 people, 1,000 people, 2,000 people, 4,000 people.
28:32The violence that I witnessed in the 80s was as much a social thing as it was a football thing.
28:41I went into it with all the obvious theories.
28:43This was during Margaret Thatcher's Britain, and it was a tough time for a lot of people who didn't have a lot of money.
28:49This is the disenfranchised. This is how they're expressing themselves.
28:52This is the angry people, and they were not disenfranchised, and they were not poor, and they were not angry.
28:58They had good jobs. They had families. They read. They had opinions.
29:02But for a moment, it became a fashion.
29:07And they would gather in huge numbers to participate in this experience.
29:12It took a long time for them to admit that one of their most exciting pastimes was to meet in gigantic gatherings and beat each other up.
29:21I would ask them things like, you know, what is your strategy? What do you do?
29:25They used to fight for a long time, but now they have to bring knives because they only got a really quick chance to get into a fight and succeed and get out.
29:33I remember most vividly when West Ham came to Manchester. That was a piece of orchestrated wonder.
29:40All the Man United fans were hanging out at a pub. Nobody was being too explicit about why they were there.
29:46But they were there because at 1.33, the train from London was arriving.
29:51They knew that West Ham would be coming down this ramp.
29:53And suddenly you had a mob of 2,000 people.
29:56And they all started going up to the station, marching, marching, faster, faster, chanting, chanting.
30:04And then it's the same, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.
30:07And I was trying to get up to the front and try to get up to the front.
30:09And suddenly they went, Yikes!
30:13It was just one of the many mob scenes Buford witnessed.
30:17He eventually made his way deeper into a Manchester United hooligan firm, as they called it.
30:23He traveled with the ringleaders to a match in Turin, Italy.
30:27It was a windy, dark night. I realized that the fans were held back because that was the practice.
30:33You hold back the visiting fans so they don't engage with the home fans.
30:38This man with his family, he could see what was coming and they were getting close.
30:42And then they just run over him. Run over him.
30:46I've never seen people getting kicked in the head close up.
30:51It's not getting kicked in the head like you see in a movie.
30:54You know, it's a soft sound. It's like sneakers on human tissue or on hair.
30:59It's a completely, somehow it's so much more graphic and disturbing.
31:08How many of those types of sporting tragedies have occurred here?
31:12Well, Heisel Stadium is the other big tragedy.
31:15That was Liverpool fans having a go at some Italian fans.
31:19It turned out to be sort of elderly Italian men and families.
31:23It's so violent the structure gave way and people were crushed to death.
31:27Wow.
31:28He's talking about the 1985 disaster at the European Cup final at Heisel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.
31:35A wall collapsed when Italian soccer fans were trying to escape an attack from Liverpool fans, killing 39 people.
31:43Nearly four years later, England's Hillsborough Stadium became the scene of the deadliest incident in British sports history.
31:56Ninety-seven Liverpool soccer fans were crushed to death in the overcrowded stadium, many by a wall that collapsed.
32:03Fans were being pushed in and pushed in, closed up against the fence and then people trying to lift someone over the top who passed out.
32:10It was horrific.
32:12This was the whole concept of the terraces. I've never seen anything like it.
32:16Terraces were just steps, just steps that go all the way up, all the way down.
32:20There was nothing like a fire regulation.
32:22The Hillsborough disaster prompted the British government to enact a series of changes at UK stadiums.
32:29They abolished the terraces. They introduced seats. They stopped alcohol.
32:33The police presence has now become much more sophisticated.
32:35More civilized.
32:36More civilized. I mean, the people are actually wearing quite nice clothes today.
32:39The tickets are much higher.
32:42They'll be televised.
32:43There's a father with a couple of children.
32:46There's more children. There's more children.
32:48They introduced civility.
32:51I'm on the train to Manchester, England, home of Manchester United Football Club.
32:55And this is one of the most storied, recognizable sports franchises in the entire world.
33:01And the team stadium, Old Trafford, is also hallowed ground for many football fans.
33:06What does it feel like coming back?
33:09Exciting.
33:10We're approaching the corner of the pitch here where Eric Cantona was kicking a corner or Giggs or Beckham.
33:19Where would you sit?
33:21Oh, you know, when I was coming, where did you stand?
33:25When you have 74,000 fans in a stadium like this, is controlling those passions a little bit concerning at times?
33:34It is. I mean, if you go back to the 1970s when we had a lot of hooliganism and a lot of issues with rival sets of fans.
33:41We don't tend to have that. Maybe somebody's had a few too many drinks or something like that.
33:46But generally speaking, there's very little.
33:48I'm kind of fascinated. As an American fan, if I went to a sporting event, you're going to have opposing fans kind of mingled with each other.
33:56But here, they're segregated?
33:58Yeah, I mean, you look behind you, you'll see the segregation. It's literally green netting on the seating there.
34:03Oh, I see.
34:04So you'll have a row of security staff just literally separating the home and the away fans.
34:10I kind of like the intimacy. I like being in a crowd where you could feel the response of every spectator around you.
34:18When you got in here, it was, I don't know, it was a little bit like going to church.
34:21And, you know, I got in with a group of people, and most of them, I liked these bastards.
34:28They were my friends, and I felt a perverse kind of community here.
34:33As we arrived here in Manchester, we were surprised to see one of Bill's old friends waiting for us at the train station.
34:39Phil, you're looking well, man.
34:41So are you!
34:42Was I a hooligan? Yeah, I was, but I like to think I was a bit of a gentleman rather than a thug.
34:47I was well known for having a one-arrow. So if you come near me, you're going to get put down.
34:51How did you enter this world? How did you get into this?
34:54I had run away from home when I was 14, and I came to Manchester.
34:57And right on that corner up there, I was watching some kids from Salford picking pockets.
35:01It was right out of Oliver Twist.
35:03I started following these kids, and they were going around the back alleys emptying wallets.
35:06We were feral.
35:07I was sort of rejected as a child. You know, these kids and these people became my family.
35:11This institution, you become a part of it.
35:14So following Manchester United for free, basically, became your sport.
35:19It was, yeah. It was like a fix. It was like a drug.
35:21And then you have to start coming every week, and it becomes more powerful and kind of spiritual connection to it.
35:27Something led me here to this space, to this energy, because I couldn't identify with religion, with the invisible concept of God and praying for things that you never get.
35:36At least here I got something. I got fulfilled.
35:39Violent fans aren't just a football problem.
35:43When we come back to the story of a baseball lover who almost died because he was a San Francisco Giants fan.
35:50I wake up every morning, and I lay there thinking, what have I done to deserve this?
36:09The deep scars and damage are still visible more than 14 years after the attack.
36:19My short-term memory is not good. You can ask me something that happened 40 years ago and I could tell you.
36:25But I don't remember what I had for dinner last night.
36:29Were you always a sports fan?
36:31Baseball, I was born a San Francisco Giants fan.
36:34What is it about sports that you love so much?
36:37The camaraderie.
36:38I'm surprised to hear. Do you go to games often?
36:41Yeah, as often as I can. Unfortunately, I don't drive anymore, so I'm ready to drive right now.
36:47But apparently my mom says, I'm not. And I go, when am I going to be ready?
36:52She didn't know, didn't have an answer for me.
36:57You might recall the story of San Francisco Giants fan Brian Stowe.
37:03Back in 2011, Stowe and some friends traveled down to Los Angeles for opening day.
37:08His beloved Giants were playing the Dodgers.
37:11Little did he know that wearing the Giants colors as he left the stadium that night would make him a target.
37:19I was wearing the obtrusive fans colors.
37:22And Dodgers and Giants have been at war ever since they started in New York.
37:26Can you take me back to the day that this happened to you?
37:30Do you remember the game itself that day?
37:32Boom, wiped it from my brain.
37:34Yet Stowe gives a vivid account.
37:37He's heard the story countless times from friends who were with him that night.
37:41March 31, 2011, I was a paramedic at the time.
37:45Myself and three other paramedics from Santa Clara County drove a car down to Los Angeles to watch the Giants hopefully crush the Dodgers.
37:53The Giants ended up losing that game.
37:55And we're walking back to the car.
37:57And they heard somebody running up behind us.
38:00According to his friend, Stowe was blindsided by two men in the parking lot wearing Dodgers jerseys.
38:06He was punched in the head, collapsed and kicked in the head three more times.
38:10He's breathing. He's got a pulse, but he's not conscious.
38:13We need an ambulance right now.
38:15Stowe was beaten so severely that part of his skull had to be removed.
38:21He was placed in a medically induced coma after surgery.
38:25You spent nine months in a coma?
38:27Yeah. My parents didn't know how to make it alive, I guess.
38:31Surprise!
38:33How were you able to laugh about what you've been through?
38:37With what happened to me, you have to be humorous.
38:40Because I could be at home lulling over this, my life sucks, I'm in pain and stuff, but it helps to be funny.
38:46It gets me through it.
38:48I have to come up with new jokes because a lot of times my mom's like, I've heard that one.
38:53One, two, three.
38:55The 56-year-old former paramedic and father of two divorced before the incident has been cared for by his parents and sisters since he left the hospital.
39:05When I was 18 and moved out, I was like, later.
39:08And then I wake up from my coma and I'm back at their house in my old room.
39:17Still had to relearn how to walk and talk.
39:19Pink step.
39:20Have you ever gotten a rundown of all of the injuries you suffered?
39:24Yes.
39:25I had brain surgery.
39:26My knee wouldn't bend.
39:28Now my knee can bend that much.
39:30My shoulder was screwed up.
39:31I had this shoulder done.
39:33Now I can move it that high only.
39:36My hands are messed up.
39:37I had this done.
39:39Tracheotomy.
39:40I just can't help but think, like, how in the world did you survive this?
39:43Darn lucky, I guess.
39:45Kick back.
39:46Brian Stowe has made a remarkable recovery, but shouldn't comeback stories be the tales we tell about the athletes on the field?
39:54Not the fans who simply come to watch them play.
39:57Okay.
39:58How's that?
39:59At the time, the horrific incident sparked a massive manhunt by the Los Angeles Police Department.
40:07They scoured the city looking for the men who attacked Stowe.
40:11I'm asking the fans that may have some information to please come forward.
40:17Investigators chased hundreds of leads.
40:20Mr. Norwood and Mr. Sanchez.
40:22And two months later, in July 2011, after eyewitness accounts, police arrested Luis Sanchez and Marvin Norwood for the savage attack of Brian Stowe.
40:32A photograph that shows a taped-off area of parking lot.
40:36In 2014, the tragedy played out in a courtroom.
40:39Defense attorneys argued there were two altercations and the taunting was on both sides.
40:45But the suspects incriminated themselves while in custody, unaware they were recorded after their arrests.
40:51I was involved.
40:52I'm pretty sure I'm going to go down for it.
40:57Witness testimony also placed them at the crime scene.
41:00And in the end, both men pleaded guilty.
41:02You know, you are the biggest nightmare for individuals that attend public events.
41:08The judge didn't hold back while sentencing the men.
41:12When you're smiling, you think it's funny.
41:14No civility, no respect for individuals.
41:18Did the culprits that did this to you, have they ever reached out to you?
41:22Have they ever tried to communicate anything to you?
41:24No, that'd be too easy.
41:25One of them got four years and the other guy got eight years in prison.
41:29They should still be in prison for life.
41:31The attackers have been released from prison and they're not far from Stowe's mind.
41:37I just want to know why they did it, why they singled me out.
41:41Has it changed how you feel about sports and going to a sports stadium or an arena?
41:46I don't trust anybody.
41:47Being sober now makes me aware of what's going on.
41:51Had I heard those knuckleheads running up behind us, I could have turned and been prepared.
41:56Stowe's family sued the Los Angeles Dodgers for millions of dollars in a civil lawsuit.
42:01Much needed money for Brian's enormous medical bills.
42:04The lawsuit accused the Dodgers of providing inadequate security the night Stowe was beaten.
42:10Lawyers for the Dodgers argued that Stowe was intoxicated and aggressive before the assault,
42:15and that security-wise, the team acted reasonably.
42:19After seven weeks, the jury ruled partially in the family's favor.
42:24Were any of the following negligent?
42:27Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, yes.
42:30The Stowe's were awarded about a third of what they asked for, $18 million,
42:35which they say was mostly used for medical and legal fees,
42:38and not nearly enough to cover the care Brian will likely need the rest of his life.
42:43My job was what I loved to do.
42:45I liked saving lives.
42:47And ever since this happened, this is gone.
42:52Is there any other kind of job that you'd want to do?
42:54Working at a carnival.
42:58Not a bad gig.
42:59I'm not kidding.
43:00Take it on the road.
43:01I could speak every single day about getting injured and fan violence,
43:05and it's something that needs to be talked about.
43:11Did you ever wish you had not gone to that game?
43:13No.
43:14Being part of the game, it's in me.
43:16It's what I deserve to be doing, rooting on my team.
43:19I need to be at the game.
43:21It shocked me that Brian Stowe's sports passion still burns so intensely.
43:36In this storage room, I keep my own sports memories.
43:39In these dusty bins, I have a bunch of old autographed baseballs.
43:44I've got my first baseball glove.
43:48Isn't that great?
43:50I've got a Roger Staubach autographed football.
43:57Oh, this is a great ticket stub.
44:001989, Texas Rangers playing the Boston Red Sox.
44:04It was my dad's birthday.
44:06It was an absolutely perfect day.
44:08I can remember it vividly.
44:13Looking at these old ticket stubs,
44:15it reminds me that what they actually symbolize
44:18is the powerful memories.
44:20And it's what keeps us coming back to the games.
44:24It's what keeps us coming back to the games.
44:26It's what keeps us coming back to the games.
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