December 11, 2004

Eyewitness accounts.

The NYT prints website firsthand accounts of the Dimebag Darrell Abbott murder:
Soon after the shooting, eyewitnesses posted their accounts. "Oh, my God," one reported on Metal-Sludge.com. "I'm shaking so bad I can hardly type this. I went to see Damageplan tonight at the Alrosa Villa here in Columbus. And I'm afraid I may be the bearer of some VERY TRAGIC news. Less than a minute into Damageplan's set, some guy ran onstage, grabbed Dimebag and just started pumping shots into him!!!"

Metal-Rules.com picked up a post from Australia that included another firsthand account: "I saw the guy jump out of the crowd onto the stage. He was yelling something about how 'you broke up Pantera! You ruined my life!' The whole time I thought it was part of the show. I had blood on me I was so close. I'm still freakin' out here."

We're used to non-mainstream media piecing together posts by grabbing choice quotes from mainstream media. This is the man-bites-dog reverse phenomenon. The Times article goes on to portray the reaction of of Abbott's fans through website quotes:
One Dimebag fan promised he would be visiting a grave soon - not that of Dimebag, but of his killer. The reason? To urinate on his headstone and defecate on the grass near his head. "I bet I won't be the first person there," he predicted. Another fan intimated that Mr. Gale's mother should have tried oral sex instead of intercourse.
I wouldn't have printed that here, except it was in the New York Times, so it had to be "fit to print."

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