Post by Aleksksks on Feb 6, 2007 5:10:51 GMT -5
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Gang called FSU tied to fatal brawl
Members were at club in Asbury night man died
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/4/07
BY JAMES A. QUIRK
STAFF WRITER
When James Morrison and three of his friends walked into Club Deep in Asbury Park the night of Jan. 14, they hoped to catch Ramallah, one of several hard-core punk bands slated to play.
Instead, within 20 minutes of entering the venue, Morrison, 25, lay dying in the arms of one of his friends on the sidewalk just outside the club, his skull split open from a blow to the back of the head.
It is not clear exactly what happened that night inside Club Deep. Those who attended the show with Morrison say the brawl that led to his death was touched off by someone in the club taking offense to a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt worn by Morrison's friend.
The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office has released few details concerning Morrison's murder, and no arrests have been made. The venue's owners will say little about the incident and have closed Club Deep for the winter.
However, interviews with Morrison's mother and the friends who were with him in the club, as well as dozens of anony-mous letters and e-mails sent to the Asbury Park Press, suggest that a violent gang active within the hard-core music community may have played a part in Morrison's death.
The gang is FSU, which stands for Friends Stand United, or two curse words followed by the word "up." Once responsible for driving out neo-Nazi elements in the Boston hard-core punk scene of the mid-1980s, FSU is now a bizarre gang of young men who assault individuals at hard-core shows in dozens of cities across the country. Many of the bands that were slated to play Jan. 14 at Club Deep are affiliated with FSU, or are known to attract gang members to their shows, according to sources with the New Jersey State Police Organized Crime Control Bureau.
Morrison's mother, Lorrie Morrison, 44, of Little Egg Harbor, said she has spoken at length to the friends who went with her son to Club Deep the night he was murdered. Most of the fans inside the show, as well as many of the members of the bands scheduled to play, were wearing FSU shirts, she said.
"It's definitely FSU who is responsible" for the death of her son, Lorrie Morrison said. "If they say it's not, they're lying."
"While we are familiar with FSU, we're not going to comment on any involvement any FSU member had or didn't have with the death or Mr. Morrison," said First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter Warshaw.
Violence and FSU
FSU first became an increased concern of the State Police roughly a year ago, officials there said. Though FSU lacks the sophistication of larger gangs such as the Bloods, whom the State Police consider a criminal enterprise, officials stressed that the gang is viewed as a very serious and growing problem.
"Their primary thing is how violent they can become at these concerts," said Lt. Gerald Lewis, a spokesman for the State Police. "If one of their members gets picked on and assaulted, they will swarm the person, and increase their violent acts. . . . Their sole contributing criminal activities are assault and aggravated assault."
Violence and death at concerts of bands connected to FSU are nothing new. In December 2005, Ray Darrin Pierson, a member of FSU, was shot to death outside of a Shattered Realm concert in Tucson, Ariz. No arrests have been made in that case. Shattered Realm hails from New Jersey and has toured with Ramallah; three of its musicians are open FSU members.
It's not clear exactly how FSU devolved from a positive force purging the hard-core scene of its most unsavory elements to a gang that has the power to intimidate other hard-core fans, shut down shows and even venues. The shift took at least a decade to coalesce, but now FSU has active "crews" in nearly any state that has an active underground hard-core scene, especially Boston, New Jersey, upstate New York and Seattle, according to law enforcement officials.
In a 2006 article for The Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, reporter Megan Seling wrote: "FSU did start in the '80s as a group of people who fought racist skinheads at East Coast hard-core shows, trying to eradicate Nazis from the scene. But FSU's current insular message of fraternity and demand for respect is far removed from their anti-racist beginnings. In recent months, they've threatened and assaulted a number of members of the hard-core scene, including band members, show promoters, and music fans."
The presence of FSU members in Seattle has vexed the music scene there for years. In January 2006, gang members showed up at an all-ages show and threatened the California hard-core band Dangers, causing them not to play. At issue was the possibility that the Dangers would play their song "Neo Neo-Nazis," which lambasts FSU for morphing into nothing but a group of thugs who terrorize people at hard-core shows.
And FSU is particularly infamous in Boston, thanks in part to the widespread sale of the Boston Beatdown series of DVDs — controversial documentaries about the Boston hard-core scene that feature hard-core fans, many of them wearing FSU "colors," randomly assaulting lone individuals. Boston officials attempted to ban the sale of the DVDs and cracked down on many hard-core shows after the Boston Herald and ABC News ran features on their contents in late 2004.
Objections to T-shirt
The brawl that led to Morrison's murder may have all started with an FSU member taking offense at a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt.
Friends of Morrison who attended the show spoke to the Asbury Park Press of what happened inside Club Deep — a club on the boardwalk, near Second and Ocean avenues — on Jan. 14. Fearing retaliation from FSU members, they asked that their names not be printed.
Morrison, a Navy veteran who served during the onset of the Iraq war on board the USS Bataan, had moved to Waretown with a friend just a week before the Jan. 14 show. A musician himself, Morrison enjoyed attending local shows with his friends. Their plan Jan. 14 was to see Ramallah, a hard-core act with roots in Boston that, while popular in the underground scene, has played only sporadic shows in the area.
The quartet arrived at around 5:30 p.m., not too long after bands began to play. The lineup advertised for the show was Years Spent Cold, Hard Response, Wisdom In Chains and Ramallah.
"This was the only concert I've ever been to where I didn't get searched going through the door," one friend said.
Inside the club, for reasons the friends say they still don't understand, the atmosphere was immediately tense.
"From the time we walked in, it was like all eyes were on us," one friend said. "It was like they already knew what they were going to do. Most of the club was flying gang colors — kids were wearing FSU Nation jackets, FSU shirts."
Within 15 minutes of walking through the door, one of Morrison's friends — who was wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt that features a Confederate flag — was approached by a man and told to take the offending shirt off.
Morrison's friends say he tried to defuse the situation, but the man then removed his jacket, pointed to the FSU T-shirt he was wearing underneath, and asked, "Now what do you think about that?" before throwing a punch.
Chaos ensued. Morrison sprang to the defense of his friend. According to his mother, Morrison may have been struck in the head and body with a bar stool at this point.
Another friend, who was outside smoking a cigarette when the fight broke out, said he saw the young man wearing the Skynyrd shirt being thrown down the front steps of the club. He rushed to his friend's aid, only to find that Morrison and another friend were being pushed out the door by security guards and dozens of people from inside the club.
Hit from behind
Morrison had already been badly hurt inside the club, his friends told the Press. Outside, he and his friends were quickly surrounded by people from inside the club. The club owner appeared and told everyone to clear the area.
"We started to walk away, and then all of a sudden, someone hit Jim, and he hit the ground and died," a friend said. "I know he wasn't struck with a fist. From the sound it made, it sounded like brass knuckles — it made this loud, metallic cracking noise. I've never heard anything like that."
Asbury Park police received a call at 5:50 p.m. that a fight had erupted at Club Deep that resulted in injuries. At the scene, police found Morrison on the ground in front of the club, according to Warshaw.
Morrison was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 6:30 p.m. A subsequent autopsy ruled the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the back to the head, Warshaw said.
Investigators have not disclosed whether Morrison was struck with a specific object, or if his death was caused by falling to the curb or sidewalk. Upon viewing her son's battered face and head in the hospital, Lorrie Morrison said she refuses to believe his death was caused by a fall to the pavement.
The days following Morrison's death have been a blur for his family. His mother said she has heard nothing from the club owners and received little information from investigators concerning the progress of the case. Meanwhile, speculation, theories, accusations and hyperbole abound online, on everything from MySpace pages to message boards on thenjscene.com and skinheads.net.
"It's really starting to hit me now," Lorrie Morrison said. "I was hoping it was all just a bad nightmare, something I could wake up from."
James A. Quirk: (732) 643-4215 or jquirk@app.com
Gang called FSU tied to fatal brawl
Members were at club in Asbury night man died
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/4/07
BY JAMES A. QUIRK
STAFF WRITER
When James Morrison and three of his friends walked into Club Deep in Asbury Park the night of Jan. 14, they hoped to catch Ramallah, one of several hard-core punk bands slated to play.
Instead, within 20 minutes of entering the venue, Morrison, 25, lay dying in the arms of one of his friends on the sidewalk just outside the club, his skull split open from a blow to the back of the head.
It is not clear exactly what happened that night inside Club Deep. Those who attended the show with Morrison say the brawl that led to his death was touched off by someone in the club taking offense to a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt worn by Morrison's friend.
The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office has released few details concerning Morrison's murder, and no arrests have been made. The venue's owners will say little about the incident and have closed Club Deep for the winter.
However, interviews with Morrison's mother and the friends who were with him in the club, as well as dozens of anony-mous letters and e-mails sent to the Asbury Park Press, suggest that a violent gang active within the hard-core music community may have played a part in Morrison's death.
The gang is FSU, which stands for Friends Stand United, or two curse words followed by the word "up." Once responsible for driving out neo-Nazi elements in the Boston hard-core punk scene of the mid-1980s, FSU is now a bizarre gang of young men who assault individuals at hard-core shows in dozens of cities across the country. Many of the bands that were slated to play Jan. 14 at Club Deep are affiliated with FSU, or are known to attract gang members to their shows, according to sources with the New Jersey State Police Organized Crime Control Bureau.
Morrison's mother, Lorrie Morrison, 44, of Little Egg Harbor, said she has spoken at length to the friends who went with her son to Club Deep the night he was murdered. Most of the fans inside the show, as well as many of the members of the bands scheduled to play, were wearing FSU shirts, she said.
"It's definitely FSU who is responsible" for the death of her son, Lorrie Morrison said. "If they say it's not, they're lying."
"While we are familiar with FSU, we're not going to comment on any involvement any FSU member had or didn't have with the death or Mr. Morrison," said First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter Warshaw.
Violence and FSU
FSU first became an increased concern of the State Police roughly a year ago, officials there said. Though FSU lacks the sophistication of larger gangs such as the Bloods, whom the State Police consider a criminal enterprise, officials stressed that the gang is viewed as a very serious and growing problem.
"Their primary thing is how violent they can become at these concerts," said Lt. Gerald Lewis, a spokesman for the State Police. "If one of their members gets picked on and assaulted, they will swarm the person, and increase their violent acts. . . . Their sole contributing criminal activities are assault and aggravated assault."
Violence and death at concerts of bands connected to FSU are nothing new. In December 2005, Ray Darrin Pierson, a member of FSU, was shot to death outside of a Shattered Realm concert in Tucson, Ariz. No arrests have been made in that case. Shattered Realm hails from New Jersey and has toured with Ramallah; three of its musicians are open FSU members.
It's not clear exactly how FSU devolved from a positive force purging the hard-core scene of its most unsavory elements to a gang that has the power to intimidate other hard-core fans, shut down shows and even venues. The shift took at least a decade to coalesce, but now FSU has active "crews" in nearly any state that has an active underground hard-core scene, especially Boston, New Jersey, upstate New York and Seattle, according to law enforcement officials.
In a 2006 article for The Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle, reporter Megan Seling wrote: "FSU did start in the '80s as a group of people who fought racist skinheads at East Coast hard-core shows, trying to eradicate Nazis from the scene. But FSU's current insular message of fraternity and demand for respect is far removed from their anti-racist beginnings. In recent months, they've threatened and assaulted a number of members of the hard-core scene, including band members, show promoters, and music fans."
The presence of FSU members in Seattle has vexed the music scene there for years. In January 2006, gang members showed up at an all-ages show and threatened the California hard-core band Dangers, causing them not to play. At issue was the possibility that the Dangers would play their song "Neo Neo-Nazis," which lambasts FSU for morphing into nothing but a group of thugs who terrorize people at hard-core shows.
And FSU is particularly infamous in Boston, thanks in part to the widespread sale of the Boston Beatdown series of DVDs — controversial documentaries about the Boston hard-core scene that feature hard-core fans, many of them wearing FSU "colors," randomly assaulting lone individuals. Boston officials attempted to ban the sale of the DVDs and cracked down on many hard-core shows after the Boston Herald and ABC News ran features on their contents in late 2004.
Objections to T-shirt
The brawl that led to Morrison's murder may have all started with an FSU member taking offense at a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt.
Friends of Morrison who attended the show spoke to the Asbury Park Press of what happened inside Club Deep — a club on the boardwalk, near Second and Ocean avenues — on Jan. 14. Fearing retaliation from FSU members, they asked that their names not be printed.
Morrison, a Navy veteran who served during the onset of the Iraq war on board the USS Bataan, had moved to Waretown with a friend just a week before the Jan. 14 show. A musician himself, Morrison enjoyed attending local shows with his friends. Their plan Jan. 14 was to see Ramallah, a hard-core act with roots in Boston that, while popular in the underground scene, has played only sporadic shows in the area.
The quartet arrived at around 5:30 p.m., not too long after bands began to play. The lineup advertised for the show was Years Spent Cold, Hard Response, Wisdom In Chains and Ramallah.
"This was the only concert I've ever been to where I didn't get searched going through the door," one friend said.
Inside the club, for reasons the friends say they still don't understand, the atmosphere was immediately tense.
"From the time we walked in, it was like all eyes were on us," one friend said. "It was like they already knew what they were going to do. Most of the club was flying gang colors — kids were wearing FSU Nation jackets, FSU shirts."
Within 15 minutes of walking through the door, one of Morrison's friends — who was wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt that features a Confederate flag — was approached by a man and told to take the offending shirt off.
Morrison's friends say he tried to defuse the situation, but the man then removed his jacket, pointed to the FSU T-shirt he was wearing underneath, and asked, "Now what do you think about that?" before throwing a punch.
Chaos ensued. Morrison sprang to the defense of his friend. According to his mother, Morrison may have been struck in the head and body with a bar stool at this point.
Another friend, who was outside smoking a cigarette when the fight broke out, said he saw the young man wearing the Skynyrd shirt being thrown down the front steps of the club. He rushed to his friend's aid, only to find that Morrison and another friend were being pushed out the door by security guards and dozens of people from inside the club.
Hit from behind
Morrison had already been badly hurt inside the club, his friends told the Press. Outside, he and his friends were quickly surrounded by people from inside the club. The club owner appeared and told everyone to clear the area.
"We started to walk away, and then all of a sudden, someone hit Jim, and he hit the ground and died," a friend said. "I know he wasn't struck with a fist. From the sound it made, it sounded like brass knuckles — it made this loud, metallic cracking noise. I've never heard anything like that."
Asbury Park police received a call at 5:50 p.m. that a fight had erupted at Club Deep that resulted in injuries. At the scene, police found Morrison on the ground in front of the club, according to Warshaw.
Morrison was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 6:30 p.m. A subsequent autopsy ruled the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the back to the head, Warshaw said.
Investigators have not disclosed whether Morrison was struck with a specific object, or if his death was caused by falling to the curb or sidewalk. Upon viewing her son's battered face and head in the hospital, Lorrie Morrison said she refuses to believe his death was caused by a fall to the pavement.
The days following Morrison's death have been a blur for his family. His mother said she has heard nothing from the club owners and received little information from investigators concerning the progress of the case. Meanwhile, speculation, theories, accusations and hyperbole abound online, on everything from MySpace pages to message boards on thenjscene.com and skinheads.net.
"It's really starting to hit me now," Lorrie Morrison said. "I was hoping it was all just a bad nightmare, something I could wake up from."
James A. Quirk: (732) 643-4215 or jquirk@app.com
