Former Cro-Mags bassist/vocalist Harley Flanagan‘s conversation about the recent violence at the “CBGB Festival“ with Nynatives.com has now been published. Flanagan was arrested on 2nd degree assault and weapons charges after slashing and biting Cro-Mags bassist Mike Couls and William Berario on July 06th in the backstage area of the aforementioned festival.
Flanagan has since claimed the alleged assaults were self-defense. As he describes it, he was invited to a dressing room backstage where he was assaulted by an unspecified group of men. He recounted the events:
“When I saw that door get pulled shut I was literally fighting for my life. I was afraid these guys were going to kick me half to death, roll me down the back steps and that no one would see it… and there would be no witnesses and that would be that….and all I could think about was getting home safe to my kids…I wanted to save my life, to protect myself and these guys were trying to do me in.
…I was getting the shit beat out of me. It was like an old fashion biker beat down, like BA BABABABABA BA And at that point everybody started screaming and I saw the door of the dressing room open and I started screaming security, security and I saw somebody pull the door shut to keep security out. And in my mind I thought to myself, “fuck, these dudes, their intention is to fuck me up, they don’t want no one to see it they’re trying to beat the shit out of me…SO what I did was defend my life…”
He continued:
“…I’m getting the shit beat out of me. …Then at that point that’s when the bouncers managed to get in the room and I ended up getting dragged out into the balcony area, which is where everybody says the mêlée took place but no the mêlée took place in the dressing room behind a locked door where I was getting jumped people by myself.
One dude says get on your stomach, get on your stomach, put your hands out in front of you and this one guy, big guy steps on my back and he’s standing with both of his feet on my back….and one guy is literally looking at me squeezing my throat choking me and … at this point it was DMS guys and security I don’t know who the fuck was which…one guy looks at me and says motherfucker I’ll fucking kill you…I will kick you in your fucking face until you are dead motherfucker stop moving..
and I’m just like Yo, I’m stopping moving at that point. And one guy’s like put your hands out in front of you and I’m like are you a cop and he’s like yeah and I’m like show me your badge and at that point ….the boys in blue hallelujah…the cops came running up the stairs…
I was like fine, I’m not moving anymore … please cuff me, I stuck my hands out in front of me.. I’m face down on the floor. At that point I still didn’t know that I had been stabbed, I got 30 stitches in my leg. Thank God it was in my leg …and the cops cuffed me, turned me over and that’s when I saw the wound in my leg…
[ It] was just grotesque…the blood was bubbling out of it, the fischa was ..the tendons was literally hanging out of my leg….that’s why people started saying that’s a compound fracture…it was until I got cleaned up in the ambulance they realized it was more of a stab wound. And that’s when the cops put me on the chair. And they put me in the ambulance.”
Flanagan further told the site that he had attended the event with hopes to try and rekindle a friendship with his ex-Cro-Mags bandmate, John Joseph McGowan. More on that can be found at the above-mentioned link.
