| Meredith Hunter | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 24, 1951 Alameda County, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 6, 1969 (aged 18) Altamont, California, U.S. |
Meredith Curly Hunter (October 24, 1951 – December 6, 1969) was a male spectator at the Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by The Rolling Stones, Hunter pulled out a gun after being punched by a Hells Angel and was then stabbed to death by a Hells Angel serving as a security guard. The incident was caught on camera and became a central scene in the documentary Gimme Shelter.
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Hunter, an 18-year-old from Berkeley, California, was nicknamed "Murdock" and described by friends to be a flashy dresser with a big Afro. Hunter, his girlfriend Patty Bredahoff, and another couple traveled from Berkeley to attend the Altamont Free Concert.[1][2]
The Hells Angels had been hired to provide security for the concert in a deal that was rumoured to include $500 worth of beer.[3] They stood directly in front of the bands in an effort to keep people off the unusually low stage.
Fueled by LSD and large amounts of amphetamines, the crowd had also become antagonistic and unpredictable, attacking each other, the Angels, and the performers. By the time the Rolling Stones took stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn as numerous fights began to erupt between Angels and crowd members and within the crowd itself. Projectiles started being thrown at the stage. The Angels retaliated by hurling back full cans of beer from their stockpile and swinging sawed-off weighted pool cues and motorcycle chains to drive the crowd farther back from the stage.
Lead singer Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones (who had already been punched by a concertgoer within seconds of emerging from his helicopter[4]) was visibly intimidated by the unruly situation, urging everyone to "Just be cool down in the front there, don't push around." Within a minute of starting their third song, "Sympathy for the Devil", a fight erupted in the front of the crowd, at the foot of the stage. After a lengthy pause and another appeal for calm, the band restarted "Sympathy" and continued their set with less incident until the start of "Under My Thumb". At this point, two of the Hell's Angels got into a scuffle with Hunter when he attempted to get onstage with other fans. One of the Hell's Angels grabbed Hunter's head, punched him, and chased him back into the crowd.
After a few seconds Hunter angrily returned to the front of the stage where, according to Gimme Shelter producer Porter Bibb, Hunter's girlfriend Patty Bredahoff found him and tearfully begged him to calm down and move farther back in the crowd with her. By her report he was enraged, irrational and "so high he could barely walk".[5] Rock Scully, who could see the audience clearly from the top of a truck by the stage, noticed Hunter clearly in the crowd, remembering, that “I saw what he was looking at, that he was crazy, he was on drugs, and that he had murderous intent. There was no doubt in my mind that he intended to do terrible harm to Mick or somebody in the Rolling Stones, or somebody on that stage."[6]
At this point, footage from the documentary shows Hunter (seen in the film in a lime-green suit) drawing a long-barreled black revolver from his jacket and pointing it in the air. [7] The film clearly shows a bright orange flash at the end of the pistol in one frame. Porter Bibb says it is impossible to determine whether the flash is a gunshot, a reflection, or something else.[8] The film then shows Hells Angel Alan Passaro, armed with a knife, running at Hunter from the side, parrying the gun with his left hand and stabbing him with his right. The footage was shot by Eric Saarinen who was on stage taking pictures of the crowd. Saarinen was unaware of having caught the incident on film. This was discovered more than a week later when rushes were screened in the New York offices of the Maysles Brothers.
In the film sequence, lasting about two seconds, a six-foot opening in the crowd appears, leaving Patty Bredahoff in the center. Hunter enters the opening from the left, his hand rises and the silhouette of a revolver is clearly seen against Bredahoff's bright crocheted dress. Passaro is seen entering from the right and delivering two stabs as he pushes Hunter off screen. The opening closes around Bredahoff. Passaro is reported to have stabbed Hunter five times in the upper back. Witnesses also reported Hunter was stomped on by several Hells Angels while he was on the ground. The gun was recovered and turned over to police. Hunter's autopsy later confirmed his girlfriend's report that he did have methamphetamine in his bloodstream at the time of his death.[1][8][9]
Passaro was arrested and charged with murder for Meredith's death, but was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense after the jury viewed the footage from the concert showing Hunter drawing the revolver and pointing it in the air.[7]
The Rolling Stones were unaware that a killing had taken place during their set. In 1995, lead singer Mick Jagger commented on Hunter's death in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner, who asked, "After the concert itself, when it became apparent that somebody got killed, how did you feel?" Jagger replied, "Well, awful. I mean, just awful. You feel a responsibility. How could it all have been so silly and wrong? But I didn't think of these things that you guys thought of, you in the press: this great loss of innocence, this cathartic end of the era.... I didn't think of any of that. That particular burden didn't weigh on my mind. It was more how awful it was to have had this experience and how awful it was for someone to get killed..."[10]
Shortly after Hunter's death, Altha May Anderson, Hunter's mother, requested that Altamont Raceway be turned into a public park to "prevent any more wrongful deaths at Altamont". Alameda County officials later voted to allow the Raceway to still host races, but barred future concerts and restricted the number of attendees to 3,000.[9] Anderson later sued the Rolling Stones for $500,000. After withdrawing attempts to get the case dismissed, the band paid Anderson $10,000.[11]
Passaro was discovered to have drowned in the Anderson Reservoir in 1985; police said "the death is kind of suspicious",[12] though foul play was never confirmed.
Over the years, there were rumors that a second, unidentified assailant had inflicted the fatal wounds, and, as a result, the police considered the case still open. On May 25, 2005, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office announced that it was officially closing the stabbing case. Investigators, concluding a renewed two-year investigation, dismissed the theory that a second Hell's Angel took part in the stabbing.[1]
In 2006, filmmaker Sam Green released a short documentary titled Lot 63, Grave C (Hunter's gravesite), which revolves around the last day of Hunter's life and the unmarked grave where he was buried.[13] After the film screened widely at film festivals, several people sent donations to the cemetery to buy Meredith Hunter a headstone. The headstone was installed in 2008.