- Carlington Wilmot/FreelancePhotographer
This injured woman lies on a stretcher, which is being taken into an ambulance, after a bottle-throwing melee at the Sting 2003 concert at the Jamworld Entertainment Centre on Boxing Day.
Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
THE UGLY face of the mob ruled Sting 2003 at the Jamworld Entertainment Centre in Portmore, St. Catherine, as bottles, stones and gunshots peppered the air to bring a premature, terror-filled end to the annual dancehall show on Boxing Day.
The police say seven persons were injured, including a CVM employee, during the ensuing melee and mini-stampedes in the venue as people bolted for safety, seconds after it was announced that deejay Bounty Killer would not be appearing on the show.
Women, some skimpily-clad, scampered for cover, kicking off their shoes in the process, and hightailed it out of the venue barefooted. Patrons in the VIP section of the crowd hid under the stage, sheltered behind buses and water tanks, and tore down chain-link fences as bottles fell like Old Testament hail from the sky. A member of The Sunday Gleaner news team sought shelter under a tractor, parked close to the front of the stage, while patrons ran helter-skelter around the venue.
For the next six minutes, the 'rat-a-tat-tat' of automatic gunfire filled the air and, occasionally, there was a twang of metal as stones and bottles smashed against the steel hull of the tractor. Broken glass littered the sand. Heavily-armed security personnel, with a TV news cameraman in tow, ran towards the retreating crowd in an attempt to stop the bottles.
Meanwhile, a woman who hunkered under the tractor was almost hysterical in her terror at the situation that was threatening to escalate out of control.
"Ah careless mi careless... why me de ya so? Mi coulda de home wid me baby right now... how the people dem awful so? Every year, ah de same slackness gwaan ah Sting," she cried as a bottle smashed only a few feet away from where she crouched.
The pressure cooker situation had been created earlier by an on-stage fight between Ninja Man and Vybz Kartel at about 5:45 a.m. yesterday.
Vybz Kartel sent out a clear warning that he was taking no prisoners at Sting 2003, and that he was going to clash with the feared Desmond 'Ninja Man' Ballentine, and that he intended to defeat him.
"This is not Heineken Startime, this is Guinness Wartime. Oonu nah call him out!" he said belligerently. He then did singles like Gun Clown, and Buss Mi Gun Like Nutten.
"Anno pose and clothes, ah lyrics win war! Dem only have strength fi beat up woman, and throw pickney through window," he declared to shouts of approval of the crowd.
After a while, he exited the stage, and then Ninja Man, dressed in black graduation gown and matching hat with tassels, walked out to wild ovations. However, as he began to deejay, a partisan contingent of the crowd began to rain water bottles at him, one of which whizzed by his face.
Kartel ran onto the stage at this point, and deejayed a few words to loud cheers from the audience.
Then Ninja Man appeared to push Kartel on the shoulder. One of Kartel's cronies attacked Ninja Man from behind, and Kartel floored Ninja Man with a punch that sent him sprawling backwards. The crowd stood stunned while fists flew everywhere. Security personnel stormed the stage at this point, but not before Kartel delivered a final kick to the now prostrate Ninja Man.
ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE
At that point, the show tottered on the knife edge of chaos, but the arrival of Beenie Man on stage restored calm, and he delivered a set laced with hit songs that sedated the roiling anger of the audience. However, once he left the stage, and emcee Nuffy announced that Bounty Killer would not be performing, all hell broke loose.
Isaiah Laing, CEO of Supreme Promotions Ltd., explained the reason behind the presence of glass bottles inside the venue.
"The crowd invaded the bar, and took the bottles, and started to fling them towards the stage," he explained.
Rohan Butler, manager of Vybz Kartel, couched his artiste's involvement in the fracas on-stage as "a case of self-defence".
"I am upset that it became a physical battle, but a man has to defend himself. Ninja Man said he came to kill the Alliance, why did he walk up unless he came for that purpose? The deejay was defending himself, Ninja Man pushed him two times, and he reacted by pushing him back. Regardless of whatever, Ninja Man is to be blamed, he first assaulted my artiste... but I am upset, it should never have reached that level," Mr. Butler said. "Mi sorry seh ah my artiste involve inna it, but supposed it was Ninja Man beat up Vybz Kartel, you would hear seh Ninja Man ah bad man, so why when it is the next way around that people have something bad to say about Kartel?"
But Ninja Man told The Sunday Gleaner, "Him chuck mi first, mi chuck him back, a man grab mi from back way, a man sweep weh mi foot, and by the time mi look, is a bottle dat inna my face. The Alliance fi dead, somebody fi dead, mi a wait pon the meeting with the police fi work that out. I don't want to be the old Ninja Man, if dem neglect mi, mi a go kill somebody, mi go pon stage fi mek the people dem feel nice."
