Crime and Music: Famous San Diego music venue Soma accused of employing violent security guards
San Diego, California - This email just came thru our offices today, from Shawn Cox, a DJ from Virginia. He is friends with the local band Lower Definition, flew out and attended a show at Soma, the venue in SD. His story below is rather amazing. This is HIS story and does not reflect the views of the Full Value Review. We will continue with updates about this story and stories surrounding the events at Soma.
Bill
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Hello,
I’m writing everyone today to let people know about the Boycott that has been launched against the club Soma in San Diego. The basis for the boycott is physical abuse and sexual assualt by security staff to men and women who attend the club, but before I get into that, Im going to touch on who I am, what I was doing in san diego (since i live right outside washington dc), and how I got there to begin with, then I will share my experience at the venue.
First off I’ve been a radio broadcaster and investigative reporter in washington dc for the past 7 years. I tend to have a knack for breaking new artists first, and during my search for new music a little over 2 years ago I discovered a band on myspace called Lower Definition. They were just a local band at the time but were the 1 post hardcore local band in myspaces charts. I quickly fell in love with their music and debuted them on our airwaves. Throughout the past 2+ years our relationship has grown immensely. I have lyrics from 2 of their songs tattooed on my back, and I had them in the studio for a live interview when they came through town, and we have spoken many times on the phone on the air over the past 2 years.
Now lets go to november 10th 2007. My dad died in a car accident that was not his fault. After a long harrowing court ordeal, the man who killed him was found not guilty on both reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter. Even though this was the court ruling my family still got a small liability settlement from the mans insurance company. After paying off most of my debt, i saved money to take a vacation. After all, I really needed a break to let go of the pain. In the past year i had lost my high paying job, lost my father, lost my girlfriend to another guy, so I deserved a break. I earned it.
So when it came time to decide where to go and what to do, the choice was easy. I wanted to see my favorite band play at their home venue Soma. I wanted to know what it was like to watch them in a room full of people who knew who they are, because when they play locally its usually me and a couple other guys as they are just gaining popularity nationally. So I see they have a show booked october 10th as the headliner, which is even better because they will play a longer timeslot then previous shows I had seen so I take this opportunity and book my flight, and I bring my cohost with me. The week before we left we actually called the club on the air and spoke with christina who often runs the ticket booth and told her about our upcoming adventure and gave them lots of free publicity on our airwaves.
So come october 10th we arrive at the club, and it began as one of the greatest nights of my life. Im hanging with the guys in the band again who i hadnt seen in 3 mos, im finally meeting the girlfriends, parents, other players who i have heard alot about or spoken to online but never met. It was an amazing evening. The show began and I was having the time of my life. It was the first time in a long time that I felt truly happy. Then the incident occured….
Im standing about 3 rows back from the front in a sea of 1000+ plus kids, reliving my youth being tossed around in a pit but thoroughly enjoying myself. For no reason whatsoever a security guard starts to pull me over the gate. I thought that maybe he thought I wanted to go because i was throwing my hands up in the air and maybe he got a mixed signal, so I go over voluntarily, then what happens next was the second most traumatizing moment in my life next to my dad dying.
The security guard immediately puts me in a choke hold and begins squeezing right on my windpipe very hard to the point where I can not breathe. He is also dragging me by my neck while he is doing this. Im tapping on his arms trying to trying to tell him that i can not breathe. Im not resisting at all, and I put my arms up to show him and everyone else that im not resisting and he says “Put your hands down!”. Im being slammed into people and objects as im being dragged through a hallway. At this point im up to a minute without oxygen and Im slowly dying. I have always heard that your life flashes before your eyes right before you die and I now know what thats like. I began to have visions of my daughter growing up without a father My vision was going black, and right before I completely blacked out, they slammed me into the ground so hard that it knocked one of my contact lens’ out. My elbow still hurts to this day and its been over a month.
They let me up and I run to the front of the building to find the owner who i had spoken to earlier in the night. When I get to the front the security guard says “He swung on some kid”. First off, Im 30 years old and the father of a 7 yera old daughter. Ive only been in 1 fight in my entire life when I was 12 and he started it. Anyone who knows me knows that I would not have done that, I mean, think about it. Do you really think I would have travelled 2253 miles, on a trip designed for letting go of the pain, to start a fight with a teenage kid who i have never met, at my dream concert, and risk getting in trouble? No way. This just didnt happen.
But why believe me, right? After retuning to DC I made a post on the bands website asking if anybody witnessed my attack, and the singers brother did.
Here is what he saw in his words:
“All I saw was the big guy (Samoan, very wide) had a choke hold on you, and one guy to your left, had a wrist lock on you, and there was on trailer that pulled up the rear, but wasn’t really doing anything. As you were hauled up the stairs, you ran your shoulder into my thigh and the guy who had you in a wrist lock, ran into my stomach. I didn’t get a look at the guy’s face who had you in a wrist lock, as he had his head down. At that point, I was just trying to hold my ground and cover mom (Matt’s and my mother). My kids, standing on the opposite rail, saw a little less than I saw. It kinda scared Gavin, as it all happened so quickly.”
I would also like to point out that I have been going to concerts and clubs since the age of 14, and in 16 years I have never once been removed from a club ever. This was a brutal and uncalled for attack. After the show the security guards were making jokes about the incidient to the band, saying “Yeah, your friend from virginia? He got the full soma treatment tonight.”
Do you think that ruining my trip was funny? Do you think that suffocating me was funny? I dont. Not in the least bit.
After still being shocked about the attack after returning, I decided to call San Diego Police to report the incident, because the attack was extremely brutal and uncalled for.
They told me unfortunately they can not take battery reports over the phone, but to quote the female officer exactly “Soma is notorious for this”
Do you see the point im trying to make here? They ruined the trip of a lifetime that took the death of my father to be able to afford. I spent the past year waiting tables to get by after losing my job in august 2007. Theres no way i could have afforded that trip otherwise, and they took it from me for no reason. I will never forgive them for this.
So I decided to launch a boycott upon my return. Since im an investigative reporter, I knew I had to dig deeper because I had a feeling there was more to this venue, since people started telling me other incidents of security violence that have occured. So I decided to google “Boycott soma san diego” to see if anyone else had the idea, and I found this page:
www. myspace. com/boycottsoma
This page has been up and running since 2004! What are 2 of the main reasons for their boycott? security violence, and security sexually assaulting female guests. I have contacted them and we will begin working together on this.
So in preparation for the boycott I also made a post on myspace stating that I was about to begin my boycott, and I get this message from a female in san diego:
“SOMA is absolute shit. i’ve been going there since i was 14, and in 6 years i’ve seen everything from guards slamming kids down on the ground, guards punching kids in the face, to a guard watching my kid sister get into a fight with girls bigger than she is and laugh, and then a guard actually grabbed my chest one night and did the same to my friend as we tried to walk past people to get up front. i was actually almost crushed to death there during an avenged sevenfold show. SOMA didn’t start out that way; it used to be just a really cool local place to see good punk bands play in the early 2000’s with good people looking out for you, but now that the staff has changed so much…i hate it.”
So I told her my story and asked her for more stories regarding soma security, and she replies with:
“yep that sounds like the kind of thing that a guard at SOMA would do. i’ve seen that happen on several occasions, and 9 out of 10 times it’s not warranted and they use the old “oh he swung on some kid” routine to get out of it. there’s a big samoan guard there that’s particularly vicious, i saw him slam a kid down so hard that the kid literally bounced. ridiculous, right? but yeah, i’d love to see SOMA’s current staff get tossed out on their asses and more people that really love what they do and love the music scene be in charge. i’ll ask around - a lot of my friends and i grew up at SOMA, so there’s a few battle stories to tell i’m sure.”
Now lets stop for a second. what word in the above have we heard before earlier. SAMOAN. She had no clue that I already had a witness account stating that a samoan guy attacked me. She also did not know that I had found the boycott soma myspace page which mentioned the sexual assault on females in the venue. So now we have multiple witness accounts of physical abuse and sexual assault at this venue.
This investigation is just beginning. As I am writing this its only been a month since the attack and I have yet to begun to dig for more witnesses and victims, but I can tell you this. I will not stop until soma is shut down and no other guys will be physically assaulted and no other girls will be sexually assaulted. NOW HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART! If you are a witness or victim to any type of physical assault or sexual assault or touching in any way, please come forward and tell me your stories as I am building my case against this club.
I will end by saying that if you will support this cause, please cut and repaste this email into a bulletin on myspace and spread the word, and dont be afraid to forward this to the club itself. They know who I am, and they know what they did, and they need to get used to seeing my face because Im not going anywhere.
Thanks for your support, please check my page for future updates
Shaun