MELEE ERUPTS AT HEMP EVENT

Police Use Spray To Control Crowd On Credit Island

Police sealed off Davenport's Credit Island Park and made more than 30
arrests Saturday after a melee broke out between officers and participants
at a marijuana-themed festival there.

A Davenport police officer, Chad Langager, 36, was hositalized and expected
to undergo surgery for a serious knee injury. One festival-goer who
allegedly had been smoking marijuana came away with a broken nose.

The Hempfest - which is intended, organizers have said, to promote the
benefits of the hemp plant from which marijuana is made - was only 90
minutes old when the disturbance began. The crowd intervened after police
moved in about 1:30 p.m. to arrest four people sharing a marijuana
cigarette, authorities said.

"There's no free day I'm aware of where we're not supposed to enforce
laws," Davenport Police Chief Steve Lynn said. "We tried to deal with it as
effectively as we could."

Police set up a command center at Credit Island Park before the festival
began. More than 50 officers, including Metropolitan Enforcement Group
officers and sheriff's deputies, were on the scene.

Lynn said several people incited the assemblage and called it "a crowd of
near-riot proportion."

During the fracas, police reports state that: officers were pushed, punched
and spat upon; one participant allegedly tried to wrench an officer's
nightstick from his grasp while others grabbed microphones in the park
pavilion and urged the crowd to resist police.

Police used a substance called Capstun similar to Pepper Defense Spray to
disperse the 300 to 400 Hempfest participants who had come from around the
Midwest.

Witnesses said several children were affected by the burning, choking
mixture. Tamara Kirkland, 17, of Moline, said her 4-year-old niece had to
be carried off after she was sprayed.

Lynn said the accidental spraying of some children was unavoidable because
of the circumstances.

Twelve participants, including the Hempfest organizer, Bob Moldenhauer, 43,
of Rock Island, were arrested. Moldenhauer was being held in the Scott
County Jail on $1,040 bond late Saturday, facing charges of possession of a
controlled substance, trespassing, interference and possession of drug
paraphernalia.

Police reports state that Moldenhauer was told to leave the scene. He
initially complied, but then returned and tried to hand officers leaflets.

When he refused subsequent orders to leave he was taken into custody and
had to be taken to the ground before he could be restrained, according to
the reports.

Other people arrested were being held on various charges, including
possession of marijuana, inciting a riot and assaulting a police officer.
More than 20 people, many of them in their teens, were issued citations,
but were not held in custody.

The use of the Capstun spray outraged some crowd members such as Josh
Abney, 19, of East Moline. "They sprayed me, and I threw my Mountain Dew
bottle at them," he said. "They made it a riot."

Tanya Wheeler, 19, of Moline, said she felt the police provoked the fracas.
"The mace wasn't aimed at people smoking," she said. "They were walking
around spraying everybody. I had it in my mouth, and it burns your throat."

Other witnesses also said the arrests were made with excessive force.

Lynn said the event never should have been held in the park in the first
place. Instead of acquiring a permit, Hempfest organizers applied for the
use of a park shelter which only requires notifying the city's parks and
recreation department.

"They trashed LeClaire Park three years ago, and the city said they were
not supposed to come back," he said. "But they circumvented the license
this time."

After the Hempfest was held in September 1993 at Prospect Park in Moline,
neighbors complained to city officials, saying it was nothing more than a
"drug party."