![]() 22 caliber revolver from his jacket and pointing it in the air. įootage from the documentary shows Hunter, easily identifiable in a lime-green suit, drawing what appears to be a long-barreled blue steel. There was no doubt in my mind that he intended to do terrible harm to Mick or somebody in the Rolling Stones, or somebody on that stage." Another witness reported Hunter as looking "pretty straight", though visibly upset about the violence inflicted upon him. Grateful Dead associate Rock Scully noticed Hunter in the crowd, concluding that “I saw what he was looking at, that he was crazy, he was on drugs, and that he had murderous intent. By her report he was enraged, irrational and "so high he could barely walk". Īfter a few seconds, Hunter angrily returned to the front of the stage where, according to Gimme Shelter producer Porter Bibb, Hunter's girlfriend Patty Bredehoft found him and tearfully begged him to calm down and move farther back in the crowd with her. One of the Hells Angels grabbed Hunter's head, punched him, and chased him back into the crowd, where four Angels descended upon him. At this point, Hunter climbed on top of a speaker box next to the stage, and two of the Hells Angels got into a scuffle with Hunter. After another appeal for calm, the band restarted the song and continued their set with fewer incidents until the start of " Under My Thumb". Lead singer Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones (who had been punched by a concertgoer within seconds of emerging from the Stones' helicopter) urged the audience to "just be cool down in the front there, don't push around." Within the first minute of the Stones' third song, " Sympathy for the Devil", a fight erupted in the front of the crowd at the foot of the stage. Denise Jewkes (née Kaufman) of local San Francisco rock band the Ace of Cups, six months pregnant at the time, was hit in the head by an empty beer bottle thrown from the crowd and suffered a skull fracture that warranted emergency surgery. By the time the Rolling Stones took the stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn, as numerous fights began to erupt between Angels and crowd members. Īs the Hells Angels became intoxicated and the crowd became restless and unpredictable, the drunken Hells Angels began hurling full cans of beer from their stockpile and striking concertgoers with motorcycle chains and sawed-off, weighted pool cues to drive the crowd back from the stage and the Angels' motorcycles. They parked several of their motorcycles in front of the stage to act "as a kind of bulwark against the crowd". They stood directly in front of the bands in an effort to keep people off the unusually low stage, which had been set up at the bottom of a low slope. The Hells Angels had agreed to provide security for $500 (about US$3,830 adjusted for inflation, 2022) worth of beer. 22 Smith and Wesson revolver for protection. His sister Dixie warned him about the still prevalent racism in the outer reaches of Alameda County, which prompted Meredith to take a. Hunter, his girlfriend Patty Bredehoft, Ronnie Brown (nicknamed "Blood"), and Brown's girlfriend Judy traveled from Berkeley to attend the Altamont Free Concert. Hunter was an 18-year-old from Berkeley, California, nicknamed "Murdock" and described by friends as a flashy dresser with a big Afro. Following 17 days of testimony, an eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for 12 and a half hours before Passaro was acquitted on grounds of self-defense. Passaro was charged with murder and tried in 1971. The incident was caught on camera and became a central scene in the Maysles Brothers documentary Gimme Shelter. ![]() He subsequently returned to the stage area, drew a revolver, and was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro. During the performance by the Rolling Stones, Hunter approached the stage, and was violently driven off by members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club who had agreed to serve as security guards. (Octo– December 6, 1969), was an American man who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. Skyview Memorial Lawn, Vallejo, California
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