DRUG POLICE NAB 20 AT DEER CREEK

There was so much pot at concert that police didn't focus on it, but found
LSD, mushrooms.

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (July 16, 1998) -- The Hamilton County Drug Task Force
arrested 20 people Wednesday night at or near the Furthur Festival at Deer
Creek Music Center.

"We expected it," said Lt. Randy Schalburg, a Carmel Police officer
assigned to the task force. "That is probably exactly what we expected. We
only took half a normal squad. If we had had 50 (officers) there, we would
have arrested 100 bodies."

Unrelated to the illegal drug arrests was an incident long after the
concert in which a man was beaten by fellow concertgoers for sexually
harassing women, police said.

Schalburg said undercover officers made numerous drug buys within moments
of meeting people at the show.

"It seems like everybody had it," he said.

Of the 20 arrests, 18 people were apprehended for dealing LSD and two were
arrested for selling Psilocybae mushrooms.

All the charges are Class B felony cases.

"There was so much marijuana we didn't even focus in on it. We found
marijuana on some of the people we arrested, but our focus is usually more
the harder drugs," Schalburg said.

In addition to LSD and the mushrooms, police found pills, hydrocodone, a
muscle relaxant and heroin.

They found several different types of LSD; in paper form, liquid for
injections with hypodermic needles, laced sugar cubes and window pane LSD,
which is a small transparent gel-like form of the drug.

Most of the suspects also were charged with resisting arrest.

"Next time (for the Phish concert in early August), we will have more
people there. It's kind of a shame when a 15- or 16 year-old kid can get
out, ride his bike and it's an open-air drug market," Schalburg said.

The largest quantity of drugs seized was from a dealer who had a "book" of
LSD, which is about 1,000 hits.

Schalburg said he was selling the "book" for $1,000 last night, but that
when the drug dealers moved on to follow the bands' tour, the street value
of the drugs would rise to about $7,000

"They are a nomadic people. A lot of kids travel with the band when they
are out of college for the summer," he said.

Of the 20 arrested by the task force, two were from Canada. Others were
from Florida, Pennsylvania and New York. A few of those arrested were
Indiana residents.

"They make connections that go on for the rest of the year. People travel
to a show site out of state and bring it back to Indiana," Schalburg said.

Hamilton County sheriff's deputies arrested Aaron Gater, 22, of Bloomfield
for resisting police, disorderly conduct, indecent exposure and battery on
a police officer. The arrests were in connection with an incident with a 4
a.m. incident at a campground on 156th Street.

Police said they received a report that Gater was sexually harassing a
couple of young women in the campground and was beaten by nearby campers.

He was taken to Community North Hospital at Indianapolis before being
transferred to the Hamilton County Jail in Noblesville.

The Hamilton County Drug Task Force is made up of 10 officers from the
Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville and Zionsville Police departments and the
Hamilton County Sheriff's Department

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)