Underground papers performed fake police interventions as participatory spectacle

Evidence

“A negro cop starts hedging his way through the crowd,” wrote EVO’s Allen Katzman, who covered the event for the paper he cofounded. … A wave of expectation resounds through the audience. He yells, “You’re all under arrest!” Someone screams. The band continues to play. He attacks the nude happening swinging his club like hard meat. He is grabbed, wrestled down to the ground. Hands grip his clothes pulling them from his blue and black body. He yells, “You’re all under arrest!” while one of the girls pulls of his pants and shouts, “Peace Brother!” He has camouflage fatigues under his uniform. Soon he is full nude and part of the obliteration. … Not about to give away the gag, Katzman nowhere suggests that the guy was a plant. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1179

Categorization

• CANDY: A staged fake cop arrest at a New York happening where the ‘cop’ ends up nude in camouflage fatigues — genuinely colorful bar conversation.
• XREF: connects to: A journalist’s source network shapes which narrative of a protest they produce — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 416; Journalists being caught in police violence shapes how protest history gets written — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 38