By Mike Wright
The Facts

Published March 28, 2001

ANGLETON - The sheriff's office said Tuesday an overnight music and art festival scheduled for April 7 at the Brazoria County Fairgrounds won't happen. Lt. Randy Rhyne, a narcotics investigator for the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office, said promoters won't be able to obtain the required permits for the festival because applications must be filed 60 days in advance.

"If they show up to put this thing on, they've committed a criminal act because they don't have a permit," Rhyne said. "Whoever shows up to take charge, if he shows up and he doesn't have a permit, he goes to jail."

Attempts to reach Bobby Rodriguez, president of Big-tyme Productions, which is promoting the festival, for comment were unsuccessful.

Law enforcement officials say the security needs for the Frequency Clear music and art festival will stretch their resources.

Sheriff Joe King estimates as many as 200 police officers, plus 20 supervisory personnel would be needed to provide security for the event, which officials fear could attract as many as 20,000 people from all over the southern U.S.

"(You need) one officer for every 100 people and one supervisor for every 10 officers," King said. "We could put together that many."

However, King said festival promoters have not contacted the department about providing security.

Nor have they contacted the Angleton Police Department.

Todd Scrutchfield, who works for Bigtyme, said Monday the company had plans to bring in 200-250 security officers and 30-40 off-duty Houston policemen to work the festival.

King said hiring out-of-town-officers doesn't make any sense to him.

"What bothers me is they want to bring out-of-county officers in here and never talk to me," he said.

Angleton Lt. John Carter said Houston officers would be out of their jurisdiction if they were working in Brazoria County.

"They could make arrests, but they couldn't take them to jail," Carter said.

Instead, those arrested would have to be taken to either county or city jail.

Carter said the Angleton police force isn't equipped to deal with that kind of crowd.

"With what they're expecting, there is no way we could do it," he said.

Carter said the nightmare scenario is if the crowd gets so out-of-hand police need to shut the festival down.

"If you get that many people out there and you wanted to shut it down, you can't shut it down," he said.

Scrutchfield said Monday festival organizers won't tolerate any drugs and want to run a peaceful festival centered on techno-rock.

A note on the festival's web site encourages attendees to behave responsibly.

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