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Meredith Curly Hunter, Jr. (October 24, 1951 – December 6, 1969) was an 18-year-old African-American man who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by The Rolling Stones, Hunter approached the stage, and was violently driven off by members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club who had been contracted to serve as ushers and security guards. He subsequently returned to the stage area, drew a revolver, and was stabbed to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro. The incident was caught on camera and became a central scene in the documentary ''Gimme Shelter''. Passaro was charged with murder. After an eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for 12 and a half hours, following 17 days of testimony, Passaro was acquitted on grounds of self defense. ==Altamont== Hunter, an 18-year-old arts student from Berkeley, California, was nicknamed "Murdock" and described by friends to be a flashy dresser with a big Afro. Hunter, his girlfriend Patty Bredahoft, and another couple traveled from Berkeley to attend the Altamont Free Concert. The Hells Angels had been hired to provide security for the concert in a deal that involved $500 worth of beer, about US $3,282 adjusted for inflation to 2014. They stood directly in front of the bands in an effort to keep people off the unusually low stage set up at the bottom of a low slope. As the Hells Angels became intoxicated and the crowd became restless and unpredictable, the drunken Hells Angels began hurling full cans of beer from their stockpile and striking concert-goers with sawed-off, weighted pool cues and motorcycle chains to drive the crowd back from the stage. By the time the Rolling Stones took the stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn, as numerous fights began to erupt between Angels and crowd members. Denise Jewkes of local San Francisco rock band the Ace of Cups, six months pregnant at the time, was hit in the head by an empty beer bottle thrown from the crowd during their set and suffered a skull fracture. Lead singer Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones (who had been punched by a concertgoer within seconds of emerging from the Stones' helicopter 〔The Rolling Stones et al. (1970) (DVD released 2000). Gimme Shelter. Criterion.〕) urged the audience 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 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 Hells Angels got into a scuffle with Hunter when he attempted to get onstage with other fans. One of the Hells 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 Bredahoft 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".〔Osgerby, Bill (2005). Biker: Truth and Myth: How the Original Cowboy of the Road Became the Easy Rider of the Silver Screen. Globe Pequot. p. 99. ISBN 1-59228-841-3.〕 Grateful Dead associate Rock Scully noticed Hunter 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."〔Curry, David. 'Deadly Day for the Rolling Stones'. The Canberra Times. December 5, 2009.〕 At this point, footage from the documentary shows Hunter (seen in the film in a lime-green suit) drawing what appears to be a long-barreled black .22 caliber revolver from his jacket and pointing it in the air. The film shows what might be an orange flash at the end of the pistol in one frame. Due to the film's low fidelity, it is impossible to determine whether the flash is a gunshot, a reflection, or a film defect. The Angels did not report any discharged cartridges in Hunter's pistol. 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 Bredahoft in the center. Hunter enters the opening from the left, his hand rises and the silhouette of a revolver is clearly seen against Bredahoft'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 Bredahoft. 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.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Death of Meredith Hunter」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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