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Jill Atwood ReportingA concert at a downtown warehouse gets out of hand after a fight breaks out. When police pulled up, they found two men in the street out front beaten pretty badly.
Police suspect this was gang related, but the manager of the venue says no way; he says he started bringing kids in off the streets to stop the violence.
Albee Square packs them in on a Friday night with live bands for teenagers too young for the bar scene. Last Friday night things got ugly. A fight inside spilled out onto the street. One man was beat so badly, he almost lost his eye.
Dwayne Baird, Salt Lake City Police Department: "The second one, because he had a shaved head, you could clearly see tennis shoe marks on his head and shoulders. So he'd been kicked in the face and the head."
Police believe it was gang related, but the venue manager says no. Jeff Hansen says he does have some straight-edge kids that hang out, but they weren't involved. He says they know the rules, and he does his best to keep the bad element out.
Regardless, cops say Hansen has to control his crowd or stop doing business.
Dwayne Baird: "If you have a band playing music going, whatever it is you are doing, you are responsible for the security aspect of what's going on in there. And this wasn't very well thought out apparently."
Albee Square: "I really do feel that no level of security would have been able to stop this. And I think a closer relationship with the police driving by more would be a more positive thing for us to try to deter any of this from happening."
As for the two men, both are expected to recover. There have been no arrests made in this case.
