DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Assaulted by Security at Covelli Centre

Man. I'm not sure why I'm posting this other than the off-chance that someone might shed some light on what I should do, what they would do, or maybe anyone has first-hand experience in a similar circumstance. Well, more than this - I need to blow off some steam. It's a long story, read at your own risk lol.

Last night... Judas Priest / Saxon at the Covelli Centre. I'm attending with three sons and a few friends - eight people in all. It's my son Dann's 30th birthday, another son (Ryan) getting married next Saturday so we agreed that this would be cool instead of a bachelor party. My third and youngest son, Garet, is an dean's list 4.0 student at YSU and it would be one of his first concerts. They're all good kids, we're all easy to get along with. I rented a Limo so that no one would be drinking and driving and we could enjoy this day with a "touch of class". All told, I have about $1100 wrapped up in this event.

All is good, we're outside the floor in the main bowl having drinks and a couple of us were eating. Before you know it Saxon starts after a very short break following the opening band. So were walking in blind with music blaring. I'm in the back of our group and an usher proceeds to march us all the way down to the front center section and seats us all in a row. It knew these seats were wrong, and was yelling to my son (music was LOUD) that these are the wrong seats and we need to go back off the floor and regroup. We went back outside into the bowl. I knew our seats were on the right side section, told them to wait and I went back in to scout the section myself.

Row Numbers are written on the floor in chalk - most of them unreadable at this point. Seat numbers, uh... no. All of the hundreds of seats were put in a blender and thrown onto the floor. Looking at the backs of the seats you would see numbers like 142, 16, 84, 359 all in a row. I came back and told them where we were headed, I reminded them to make it clear to the ushers that we are in two separate rows (back to back rows, 4 seats in each section, directly behind/ in front of each other).

I walk in first, stand at the end of the section as an usher is walking over. I scream to explain to them we are a party of eight and have seats in Row K and Row L. He said to take our seats in the front row, I ask "which seats, there are no seat numbers?" He says to just take the four on the end (there were five unoccupied). There were people sitting in our seats in the back row. I'm assuming he'll check their tickets and remove them. Instead he sends two of my boys past their actual seats to the other side of the people sitting in our seats. Other people in that row inform my guys that they have these seats and their friends are in the bathroom. Usher removes my guys and decides to just seat them in our row (we only have 4 seats in this row and they are cramming 6 of us there and yelling for the other people to move down. Two of my party hasn't even been seated yet and are waiting in the aisle. As they decide to reshuffle things for the third time (fourth really, considering the first time were were taken to the wrong section), my son Dann says "man, you guys need to figure this ....out!" Usher says "you need to calm down or I'm throwing you out".

At this moment I'm turned to my right explaining to the people next to me that we will leave the section if anyone comes for their seats, if not, we will sort everything out between bands. As Dann was told to calm down he turns to his girlfriend to tell her everything was cool.

Immediately, security grabs him to drag him out of the row... his brother Ryan (two seats down) sees he's being pulled out of the row and grabs Dann's shoulder. Security karate chops his arm away and slams him to the floor right in the row. His face hits the chair in front of him and there's blood all over his face. They drag him out first and Dann behind. This is where I turn and see my son Dann is being pushed out of the Arena... I don't even know anything happened to Ryan yet. As I race to get out to the lobby I see a bunch of security... my son Ryan with blood all over his face and Dann both being pushed out the main doors. My heart is racing. I put my hands up and just start talking to all security in general... "Guys, what is going on? Can we be reasonable and sort this out?"
"We ain't sorting nothing out, you guys are all out of here!"
"Out of here for what??"
"For being disorderly."
"Disorderly? they were yanked out of their seats because your ushers are clueless and seated them in the wrong place... that's being disorderly??"
"That right - all of you need to get out of here. You better calm down, you don't want to test me"
(Basically one guy playing tough guy and all other security enjoying the show)
I lower my tone and am looking around at all security... "Guys I'm their father. I'm not being unreasonable in asking for an explanation and trying to explain what went on inside, am I?"
Tough guy speaks up, "it don't matter, you guys f'd up, get out of my arena."

I walk out. My son Dann is just screaming back through the doors... "What is wrong with you guys - you BROKE HIS NOSE! What is wrong with you?? We did nothing wrong! Your people sat us in the wrong seats FOUR TIMES!"

Until this point I had no idea why Ryan's face was bloody. Now I'm just about to lose it. I see actual police parked out to the left of our exit for traffic control. I approach them to let them know what happened and need to file a police report. Meanwhile, tough guy is now outside the arena yelling "Y'all don't want to f with me! y'all don't want to f with me!" as most of my party is yelling back (it was pretty hard to calm everyone down).

"We're just traffic police, we can't do anything for you."
"So what do I do then, call 911??"
"Listen, we have nothing to do with what goes on inside those doors. Your best bet is to call Eric Ryan tomorrow, he runs the Covelli Centre."
"Oooookay. Well I left a leather jacket in there and others have belongings. If they won't let me back in to retrieve them, I'm just going to stand outside on the sidewalk and call 911 I guess."
"If they don't let you back in, come over to get me and I'll come speak to them."

I approach the door with my youngest son Garet and ask tough guy if I can go get our belongings. "Man, just get out of here."
"That's fine, but the police over there said if I was refused he would come over here and sort this out."
"Other security yells at him "Monty, just let them in to get their stuff!"
"Fine, YOU can go in by yourself."
"Not going in by myself bro"
"I ain't your bro %$$#^!"
"Monty, let those guys in to get their $#%^ stuff!"

He swings the door open and makes me squeeze by while he stares in my face like he's going to rip my head off. I laugh.

I retrieve our items... Walking back through he reengages in staring match. I'm not budging and stare right back. Other security gently puts his hand on my shoulder. "Let's be calm brother" as he walks me out.

Limousine takes us to hospital. My son has a CT scan to reveal his nose is broken... eight days before his wedding.

Can't make this stuff up.

Tell me I'm crazy, but I'm suing. There's no excuse for the way ANYTHING was handled at that arena last night. Security/ law enforcement think they can push you around and rough you up and most people will just be like "man, tough break."

I ain't most people.

Thanks for reading and letting me get this off my chest. What would you do?

did you get his name ??

We have the name of the man in charge of security. There is no name of the person who pushed my son down. It was dark inside and they were escorted quickly with security behind them. Once they reached the security area (lobby area with metal detectors as you're walking out) they were pushed through the first set of doors and other security personnel were told to remove them. I have no idea what's going on as I'm chasing them down, I had no idea anything had even happened to Ryan or that he was in front. Even after I saw he was bleeding, I still didn't know the story til after I got outside. Dude was long gone by then. Neither son really got a look at either person escorting them out. It was a melee inside and everything went very quickly on the way out.

First, file a police report IMMEDIATELY. Get documentation from the hospital. Get the story straight, clear and concise. All witnesses on same page. Minimize any belligerence on your end, emphasize noise level and seating issues. You file for assault charges, also whatever type of theft it would be. Theft of service, maybe.

Then, find an attorney who works on commission, and let him go to town. I would think you could get a very good one, sounds like a good case. Bad venue, though, no unbiased witnesses or video. Get statement from limo driver, assuming you weren't all drunk. Get statement from cop on scene.

Each of you should write your account independently of each other,
for documentation

Sorry to hear that...what a crappy thing to happen. And to top it off, you didn't even get to see JP.

Contact the management as far up the food chain as you can get .. Hire a mean nasty ass attorney and by all means see if you can't get a news Media to pick up your story !

What a suck ass story.

Good place to post it!


From reading the replies so far, my owl-like perceptions tell me this:

1) Definitely react to this fiasco.
2) Carefully think about it.
3) Follow the real good advice above.


You were definitely “wronged” and should definitely be entitled to recompensation.

Don’t get greedy. Be reasonable. Talk to an attorney.

Set as a goal,, to redo the function again. (A similar type event/party)

Same people, same budget. “That’s all you ask.”

I would hope you be treated fairly and are put up nicely.

Hopefully by year-end this will be a funny 2018 story with a happy ending.

I hope you’ll revisit this thread with updates.

Good luck from Connecticut.

Wow. Great advice all the way around guys - thanks.

We have documentation from the hospital. When we arrived I asked for an officer to file a report. He arrived and took our statements, he was very cooperative and understanding. He gave me a report receipt, said he was sure a written report would be available by Monday morning and to just call the department for a copy.

Officers at the scene wanted nothing to do with the situation. "We're just here for traffic control, we have nothing to do with anything inside the venue." I was kind of stunned, that's why I asked if I should just dial 911 to get help from the police. When I approached them the second time to ask if they could have their names for documentation purposes, officer got out of the car and said "this is becoming a real pain in my a$$, you don't need our names - the PD will know who was on duty here".

"Thank you officer" lol

Limo driver was a class act. When the gestapo was marching everyone towards the limo he actually shielded us from security that was being "pushy". "Get out of here guys - they're getting in the car, they're not inside the venue, go back inside where you belong". No lie. There was no reason for them to even follow us out there - we were outside the venue and at least 75 yards from the doors. He waited for two hours at the hospital and never said anything as we were approaching our deadline. He ran over 1.5 hours and told us there would be no charge. He also gave me his cell number if I needed a statement. I tipped him well.

I have a great attorney. I'm speaking to him Monday morning, he was unavailable yesterday.

I'm torn between what's "fair" and what should be done to make an example of a terrible situation. What's fair? Well, it's my son's 30th birthday and his brothers "bachelors party". There were six members of the wedding party, including the bride and groom. The bride spent the rest of the night crying and wondering if her wedding pictures will be with a husband with two black eyes (funny, but not funny lol). Four people in our party are also my employees, so it was a perk for them as well as they are my son's close friends and great employees (if you're doing the math - they're also members of the wedding party). These were not just a bunch of kids saying "hey dudes, lets go to a concert". Well planned and meant to be something we all could cherish and remember.



That seems fair... do I figure the cost to fly everyone out to a different city? I feel like that's the right approach. Judas Priest isn't coming back here - we'll have to go there. This wasn't just a concert - this was two legendary bands. My son Dann's girlfriend was sooo excited to finally see them. My youngest son Garet was "giddy". I'll probably try to do that even if we aren't compensated. We all work hard. I'm the type of person that always tries to take a negative and turn it into a positive. I'm in the restaurant biz so family time is always a challenge. Everybody is going out to drink green beer today - I'm about to go upstairs to my kitchen and sling a few hundred pounds of Corned Beef all day lol.

I want you guys to know - I'm not the type of person to "gold dig". I'm also old enough and wise enough to have seen that things don't change unless we get off our a$$es and do something about it. There is a part of me that says to sue for $500,000, talk to the media, bring light to terrible business practices and inexcusable aggressive behavior. I won't do it - but it's probably the "right" thing to do in today's society. There's also a part of me that says to just talk to the "top dog" at Covelli and see if we can reasonable work this out. Not doing that until after I speak to my attorney. To be honest - the very best remedy would be for people involved to look my kids in the eyes and apologize. To admit they were just one part of a screwed up situation but they were the ones who caused all of the problems and hardship - not us... not by any stretch.

Thanks so much for all of your advice. The world wants me to say "man - tough break". It helps to get confirmation from outside voices that say "heck no brother - DO something about this."

quote above by FATE:



Well, it's not.

But it's the least a fair "top dog" of the security agency should do.

Unfortunately, there's a good chance he(she) won't unless forced by law.

I hope your attorney will at least spend a little time on this.

If not, I'd expect a good reason why not or, I'd get a new attorney.

A good attorney should leave you feeling like you're taking the best course of action. One way or the other.

I'm sure you pretty much knew that. I'm just being obvious. With me, some times ideas are easier to think about when they're written down.

I hope you'll post what the lawyer says.

Don't throw the Media out with the bath water ! Plan B .

While you are deciding what to do, I want you to consider something very important.

THEY ARE GOING TO DO IT TO SOMEONE ELSE.

Maybe, next time, there is serious injury, permanent disability, or even death.

They will continue to act in this way until someone makes it painful enough that the behavior will be eliminated.

Bring the pain.

Agreed. Get your ducks in a row and an attorney working on commission.

And take these people to town.



Too often security is a bunch of 12$ an hour testosteroned up big guys just waiting for trouble. When it doesn't come, they just make it.

Not right. You were a customer for godsake

Yep. That's why I will not let this slide. It has about zero to do with money.

But you have to hold them accountable for what is right.

+1

It won't be easy proving anything because all the bouncers have to say, "they were mouthing off and disturbing the event". Boom, they can kick you out. If someone gets bruised in the process, they don't care.

Sucks. Good luck though. Keep us posted.

I’m so sorry to hear.

Not speaking about the legal side of it.....if you do plan a trip to see them, a possible good idea might to write the bands and tell them your story about the once in a lifetime memory. Maybe they will feel terrible about what happened at their concert and fly you to the next concert or at the very least bring the family backstage to meet them.

On the bright side all was calm at the Covelli center the next night when Earth Wind & Fire preformed.

Man, I have to pay more attention to the events at Covelli. I would have loved to have seen EWF.

Ah, but there's a much lower burden of proof in civil court than in criminal court.

In criminal court you have to prove your case "beyond a reasonable doubt". Realistically, FATE is going to have a very difficult time with that end of things. One, it's hard to know what kind of resources the investigating PD have, and how far they are going to take the investigation, AND assuming they can positively ID the bouncers, how much of a case can they make?

And you are right, they can make the claim that FATE's crew was getting rowdy and that's why they got kicked out. Even IF that were true, what's going to be looked as if the bouncers acted reasonably and in proportion.

My guess is that it's going to be very difficult to justify a broken nose. Even if the bouncer alleges he was assaulted first, he never called to report it and even IF that were true, he still has to justify the broken nose.

What works in FATE's favor is that in civil court, the burden of proof is much much lower... it's called "preponderance of the evidence". 51%. That's the amount he has to prove his side of the case in order to be found in his favor.

It helps that the limo driver can testify to seeing dude with the broken nose, being carried out, and be able to talk about the bouncer's conduct (and within the context of how FATE's group was behaving).

He may also have a little more experience with having taken other people to that same venue and seeing those same bouncers.

So he's got a few things going in his favor

Hey man, first, let me apologize for the cold reception of the "traffic cops". Maybe they are just traffic enforcement and don't normally investigate other things, but if that were true they still should have gotten someone to come out and talk to you. Unfortunately I think it's more likely those guys were just there for the easy money and didn't want to be bothered.

Even if you don't want it to go far, I would still highly recommend you make a complaint with that department. That's a kind of conduct that needs to be addressed.

Hell, I might even push to have the cost of the wedding covered too considering the stress the incident has put the bride to be under.

Kind of expanding on what ScottPlayersFacemask said you may want to contact the agent of the bands to inform them how you were treated and maybe they will put some pressure on the venue promoters from their end.

Fate,I've contacted my adopted brother's son,waiting for return call,as he knows some really powerful lawyers in the YTown area and has worked with some of them. When He rreturns call I'll have him tell me what to do and and who to contact. I'd also contact WKBN,WYFM,WYTV,Local Review newspapers,Forget the Vinditraitor and WFMJ,both owned by Mrs Jagnow and son Mark and you don't see them bad mouthing Covelli Center or Phantoms.

Wow... now that's going the extra mile, thank you sir.

Sounds like a really sketchy situation. I too don't normally like people starting lawsuits, but in this case I hope you take them to the cleaners.

They probably should have addressed the situation, but I hold no ill will toward them. I'm sure it's 90% politics and the fact that everything inside is handled any way security sees fit and then people are just thrown outside to become a problem for somebody else.

If you're apologizing because you are involved with law enforcement - no apology necessary. The son with the broken nose actually just completed the first steps of his education at Tri-C and intends on attending the police academy. 95% of the police going out and risking their lives every day are just trying to do a very tough job. If that is you, thank YOU for doing your part to serve and protect.

I spoke to my attorney at length today. He's digesting everything as I also took the time this weekend to compose a detailed account of everything that happened that night, and sent that to him after our conversation.

His immediate take is, yes, the situation and events that took place are unacceptable and a remedy of some kind is in order. In his words... "What's fair? Something between one dollar and one million - probably closer to the one dollar figure."

The response will (more than likely) begin with contact with the venue stating my son and I are clients seeking damages (both physical and monetary), and asking for a response from them or their insuring agencies. He'll probably contact me Wednesday with his plan going forward...

Thanks again to everyone for their responses and suggestions.

I'm going to find a JP forum to post this incident and get feedback from other fans that may have been at the same venue. I've also considered attending another event at Covelli to document the inept seating fiasco, unnumbered chairs, etc, but I'm not down with "JUSTIN MOORE "HELL ON A HIGHWAY" TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUEST DYLAN SCOTT" in late April lol.

Also...

Got a big kick out of this post, no way I throw out the effects of Media if it comes to that... I hope everything in the timeline moves quickly so I don't have to. There's a part of me that says to do it NOW regardless.

Opps... Sounds like the start of your problems. I've had this happen a dozen or more times at concerts. Once someone says crap like this it's not going to go well.

Yep. Part of the problem, but definitely not the start. The start is ushers having no clue or care where they seated people and expecting the problems (that were going on in other sections, not just mine) to magically go away.

If the resolution is to immediately grab someone, try to pull them over another human, strike a third and pound them to the ground, without saying a word, i think it is pretty obvious to anyone with five brain cells where the real problem lies.

I would have your lawyer try to get video of the crowd from that night before it is deleted. Chances are they have it. A friend of mine used to video concerts at another venue, but he was videoing the crowd, not the concert itself. This was in case there was an incident, generally to protect the venue not the other way around.

Fate, Finally got in touch with adopted brother's son,playing phone tag,his recommendations were to first use your personal attorney or one he would recommend should he not be able to handle case due to time restraint for filing in court ASAP. If you were unable to get in touch with upper management to voice your complaint and want to view security video of mishap before it gets lost,then have your attorney do this immediately. Get names of security guards,employees involved,all hospital bills,admittance time,exrays,medication expenses,ect. Your future daughter in law can also claim emotional pain and suffering for the grief incurred worrying about the effects the wedding pixs,,service,physical condition inflected on her future husband,ect. He recommended one person but I would like to keep this between you and I,so If you would like to pm me or I pm you let me know.

Pictures and write it down fresh. I think you should also collect on medical and whatever else lawyer suggests. Hope they make you whole over this.

Thank you so much. You've been a great help with the advice alone. Got an email from my attorney late last night saying he had not forgotten about me and I should expect to hear from him by this evening. Once I get a good pulse of his opinion, I'll send you a PM.

Tough to juggle all of this and get ready for the wedding... especially since I'm the Best Man AND Caterer lol.

The most important thing I can say is that in situations like this, time is of the essence. The longer you wait, the worse things will look for you. You've waited this long already. That's not good.

Hey FATE, not to make light of the situation, but to be honest with you, when I first saw the thread title I misread it. I thought it said Assaulted by Security at COVFEFE Centre... I thought maybe you had been manhandled at a Trump rally/protest named after his Twitter hashtag fiasco last year #covfefe

My bad Dawg lol

DevilDawg - Haha. It was Trump himself... he grabbed me by the ______. lmao



Couldn't agree more - something has to be done by tomorrow, it's been a week.

Glad to be of assistance to my fellow Dawg. Time is of the essence on. Good luck!!!

Fate, One more option your atty may investigate is to check ticket purchases to match any purchasers in your assigned seating area to get their take on security's actions towards you ,verify your account and maybe if they had been pushed shoved and or hit during action against your party. If people paid by card then there should be record of name and location of where that person seated for show. Just a thought and maybe someone else can come forward to help verify your account.