Another day, another totally heavy-handed and unnecessary police raid on an Australian music festival. Only this time, it wasn’t some mega-festival attended by thousands and arrest numbers weren’t in the hundreds.
As FasterLouder reports, for some reason police in Tasmania decided it would be an effective use of resources to conduct a raid on Rose Quartz, a small (and we mean small) local festival that recently held its first event at Lake Pedder.
Just a few hundred turned out to what was advertised as a 500-capacity event and most came to have a good time, enjoy some music from the likes of Roland Tings, Otologic, and Kangaroo Skull, and not be hassled by cops.
The cops soon put the kibosh on these plans by showing up and inviting their sniffer dogs to come along. Speaking to FasterLouder, attendees called the police operation “heavy-handed” and “irresponsible”, suggesting it marred an otherwise pleasant event.
“People were being safe and looking out for each other,” one punter recounted. When the cops arrived with their dogs, “people ate their drugs in a panic, and felt uncomfortable and unsafe. It was irresponsible of the police and they should have known better.”
Attendees alleged that police stopped and searched cars in addition to sweeping the dance floor and festival grounds overnight, including punters’ rooms at the nature lodge where the event took place. Some claimed they saw a sniffer dog on stage mid-set.
And what did all of the police’s hard work yield? Nothing. Zip. Nada. According to Tasmania Police, a total of five people were arrested for what they described as “minor drug matters”, adding that the event was “otherwise incident free”. Go figure.
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It’s not the first time in recent memory that a police drug blitz at an Aussie music festival has come up seriously short. A huge police operation at February’s Earth Frequency Festival at Ivory Rock ended with only a few dozen people brought up on charges.
The operation involved officers from Harrisville Police, the Roadside Drug Testing Unit, Road Policing Task Force, Ipswich Road Policing Command, Ipswich Tactical Crime Squad, Brisbane Dog Squad, and officers from across Ipswich District.
That fellowship of police badassery targeted the more than 5,000 punters who attended the four-day event, charging a grand total of 57 people. That’s after the police performed roadside breath tests on 2,500 people, or half the festival.
