selfishly, I want to continue enjoy what my main interest for the last 20 years has been, which has been skateboarding. what we do and love in skating is dependent upon using public and private space/property, and for the most part has been done without these kind of disastrous results or horrific actions from skateboarders. This may change the future and existence of street skating as we know it, it may have little to no effect on skating laws/security procedure, it is certainly too early too tell. what is certain, is that this man, dan jansen, he will never have the opportunity to get up on a saturday and do what his passion in life is (I am sure some of you probably also looked at his youtube fishing videos), or even to a high likelihood lead a normal, functional, and independent life. for me, that hurts and is even shameful to feel like I have a connection, even only remotely, because I skateboard. sure, like most of you, I have never had any physical altercation with a guard or authority figure in several decades of skating, and also like most of you, I have encountered many guards, police officers, etc. who have been the aggressors, or worse were looking for engaging in a physical match. I have to be very honest in saying it was not difficult to avoid these altercations. I for one never had anyone stop me from walking, running, or skating away, and most of the time, a genuine conversation ended with polite waves and the guards walking away with a better understanding of what we actually do as skateboarders, and less of a generalized mindset that skateboarders are hellions, only skating to partake in vandalism or start fights.
while the dialogue, debate, and thoughts here do not directly control the outcome of this situation, I do hope that we as skateboarders, look at this tragic incident and re-evaluate the reality of situations in skating, and make sure something like this never happens again. I can think of no tricks or video projects in skating that are worth the loss of an unrelated, innocent person's life, make no mistake about it, dan jansen although alive, has lost his life. we have no entitlement or right to the space we strive to use for skating, when on someone else's property. I believe what we do street skating is an art, when the intent is to create. that intent is based on using space and objects for a purpose even above ourselves, that is what good art seems to accomplish in my opinion- changing the viewer's perspective. sadly, I believe this changes a lot of viewer's perspective of skateboarding, and obviously not in a good way.
regardless of whether or not street skating is affected by this incident, the majority of us will soon be dealing with security or authority figures who will assume or want to believe we are the same type of people as the skateboarders at black rock who left a man for dead on the ground. the people who assume this will quite possibly initiate aggression toward us out of either fear or what they may consider is justified anger. I can only hope that we avoid matching their aggression. the criminal proceedings will carry out independent of our opinions here, and I respect the right for all opinions. I would be lying if I said that of all the opinions here, that many do not represent or rationalize negative and dangerous behavior, and diminish what actually happened at black rock. reasonable people can have differences in what they see in this one particular video, but I believe this much is evident: skateboarders greatly outnumbering the guard chose to run toward the point of attack, as opposed to leave- the video clearly show that. I understand that you take care of and watch out for your friends, but I do not see how anyone going in to either partake in the fight or even be close just in case can be justified based on one 57 year old man against 6-8 20-30 yr old skateboarders in superior physicality. I also cannot believe, and more importantly will not try to rationalize this security guard as the aggressor, he looks pretty calm moving the barriers several times. sure, he probably got tired of doing so, and its possible that he has played this game before, and may take some of that residual frustration out on this particular day. the problem, I can think of nothing he could have said to warrant a group attack, no matter how vulgar or insulting it may have been. was he trying to take someone's board before the first hit? even if, I think still fails to produce a single ounce of justification. Ultimately, from the yet unidentified people who laid hands on the guard, it is clear someone throws their best george foreman, sparing any legal discussions, that is simply WRONG. Even after that, the skateboarders in the video continue to engage, not leave. when the guard gets up and kicks and throws wild jabs, for anyone to say they then attack out of self-defense...is the guard not defending himself?
i have no idea who exactly did what, and again people with better evidence will determine that. I really just chose to dig up my slap account from probably a decade ago to ask anyone who is not sickened by this to consider looking back at what you do as a person and skateboarder. the balance and power has and will probably always be against skateboarding, and yes the frequency of skateboarders hurt or attacked by authority figures exponentially towers the reverse role. that cannot justify ever feeling like it is ok or justified to do what happened here. as a street skateboarder, you win when you get your clip, and you get your clip when you out wit your opponent. no one will win in this story. I hope that as a community we can help dan jansen through donations and thoughts, and so that we can show we are not savage beasts looking for this exact scenario. again, I also hope we are all careful understanding that authority figures could be extra aggressive in their near future toward us based on this incident, please be safe everyone and apologies for the long post, I could not resist.