Seattle Beating Of Soldiers

If you have not heard about the Seattle beating of two soldiers just back from Iraq here is a primer:

SEATTLE – Two soldiers who just returned from a year in Iraq were badly beaten in an attack outside Pioneer Square. But believe it or not, someone caught the beating on videotape. Now, police are asking for your help identifying the suspects.

The brutality of it all was captured on tape outside of Larry’s Nightclub on First and Yesler on July 31.

Police say the victims were with two women who’d been groped by the suspects. One of the women threw a hot dog at the suspects and walked away.

They didn’t get very far. The three suspects ran after them and began attacking the two men — two soldiers who’d come home from the war.

The graphic videotape shows both victims getting beaten over and over again, and then after one of the victims loses consciousness, a suspect starts stomping on his head.

Now police want your help in catching these guys.

“We consider them very dangerous,” said Seattle Police Officer Sean Whitcomb.

After not getting any leads, Seattle police have just released this tape to the media even though it happened over three weeks ago.

Here are the suspects:

Now Rob at Say Anything has done a bit of detective work:

On a related note, somebody emailed me a link to some video from this website, which apparently records ?ghetto? fights and sells them to the internet public. The video I saw from the email (I was repulsed when I watched it and wish people wouldn?t send me crap like that) looked so much like the video released by the police in this case got me to thinking: I wonder if this website had anything to do with this beating?

So I went to the website and, sure enough, turns out the website has a contact phone number from the Seattle area.

I?m contacting the Seattle P.D. with this info now.

Update:

Here?s a link to a sample of the type of video that website sells.

Update:

Larry?s Nightclub, where the beating occurred, is only a couple of miles (roughly) from the address given in the whois information for realfight.com.

From the satellite photo I?d say its being run out of somebody?s house. I ran a reverse on the phone number given in the contact section but its apparently unlisted, which means that I don?t have access.

Whois data below.

Registrant:
GF ENT
5032 Third Ave
Seattle, Washington 98104
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: REALFIGHT.COM
Created on: 15-Mar-00
Expires on: 15-Mar-10
Last Updated on: 15-Mar-05

Administrative Contact:
ENT, GF support@realfight.com
5032 Third Ave
Seattle, Washington 98104
United States
2063127973
Technical Contact:
ENT, GF support@realfight.com
5032 Third Ave
Seattle, Washington 98104
United States
2063127973

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.WEBINTELLECTS.COM
NS2.WEBINTELLECTS.COM

Update:

I just got off the phone with the Seattle Police Department (I had emailed them previously). The guy I spoke with is going to take the information I provided down to the assault detectives. He sound very interested. Its not for sure yet if this will lead anywhere, but I do hope it helps.

One thing that really makes me think the video taping of this beating was a setup was the way the guy operating the camera was able to walk in amongst the people doing the beating with nothing happening to him. If I were in the middle of committing a crime and somebody was video taping me I?d probably give them a beating too.

I had no idea a company like this existed but it doesn’t surprise me. Hopefully they get a lead on these scumbags soon.

UPDATE
Here is the video. Check it out and see if you can pick anymore clues. Others at Say Anything have already noticed that there are 2-3 thugs with video camera’s rolling, which is quite strange unless this was a set-up for this Ghetto Fights company and these two soldiers got used and beaten.

UPDATE II

Take a look at a sample of the kind of movie this company, Real Fights, sells. Warning, it’s pretty violent.

Now compare the two video’s, see any similarities? It’s obvious that these fights are set up by these thugs. They find an easy mark and then start a fight.
Why would they do this? Are they just scumbags? Yes, plus…..they get paid up to a grand for each video they submit. Pretty hefty incentive to pick some fights huh?

Someone left me a comment with the blog address of the person who own’s www.godaddy.com, they are the hosting company for Real Fights webpage. He may be able to help the Seattle PD track down the company’s location. I have emailed the owner and will update with any progress.

UPDATE III

While not directly related, it seems that these street fight video’s are in the news:

OAKLAND ? The woman seen in a videotape being viciously beaten by a mob as she defended herself in the back seat of a car came forward to Oakland police last week after excerpts of the tape made the evening news.She was shocked to see the tape, police said Tuesday, and traumatized all over again. The woman ? whose identity police are trying to protect, saying only that she is in her early 30s and does not live in Oakland ? wasn’t aware the October 2002 assault in a downtown Oakland parking lot had been taped. In fact, the first she learned of the disturbing video footage was when she saw it on the news last week with everyone else in the Bay Area.

“It brought back a whole lot of bad memories, and the whole trauma for her,” said Oakland police Sgt. Drennon Lindsey.

The biggest concern for the young woman, Lindsey said, is that the tape ? available the past three years at stores under the title “World’s Wildest Street Fights, Volume 1” ? had recently surfaced because of a radio show and Web site. The tape describes the woman as a snitch and says she was beaten because she had “ratted out” some gang members to authorities.

“That is absolutely not true,” Lindsey said. “This had nothing to do with anything gang-related. It was because she rejected and disrespected some dude in the parking lot who was claiming to be a pimp, and he sent his hounds to assault her. It was an unprovoked attack. She did not know these people. She is not a snitch. But she is now fearful, with her face out there and this misinformation, that someone will come after her.”

The woman told police she does not want to give interviews to the media. “She just wants to put this behind her and move on.”

The attack apparently occurred in the early morning hours of a Sunday in October 2002. The woman had gone out with some girlfriends to Sweet Jimmy’s nightclub at 17th Street and San Pablo Avenue in downtown Oakland, where a private party was going on. The women were not there for the party, and nothing happened inside the club, police said.

But when the women went outside and tried to get to their car, trouble followed. A lot of people who couldn’t get into the club were loitering on the street, police said.

A man who was “parking-lot pimpin’,” as police called it, made some crude comments to the woman as she was about to get into her friend’s car

in a lot near Oakland Ice Center on 18th Street. She rebuffed the man, “disrespecting him,” police said.

He got mad. That’s about when the videotape begins, with an unidentified narrator saying the young woman in the car had “ratted out” local gang members. A mob begins jumping on top of the car and beating at the windows. Within minutes, the young woman is assaulted by several people as she sits in the car trying to defend herself. Her attackers rip at her hair and punch her face and body. Some of her clothes are torn off.

She is then pulled from the car and beaten on the ground by at least 12 people. The video ends with the narrator saying the woman was “fighting for her life.”

Police say the woman didn’t report the assault at the time out of fear. “She was afraid,” Lindsey said. “She didn’t know who did it. These people just went violent on her.”

The tape surfaced last week on the Web site of talk show host Matt Drudge, lifted from a DVD video produced in 2002, police said. The four-minute video, also posted on at least two adult Internet sites that focus on sex and gore, was the subject of Drudge’s weekly radio program last week and spurred police investigations into the crime.

At first, police were mystified because the Web site postings said the woman had died after the fight, although no homicide victims matched the woman’s description around the time the video was made.

That mystery was solved when the woman came to police. But now, even with the victim’s information, police say there’s not much chance of prosecuting any of the attackers on the tape, unless someone who knows them comes forward. That’s not likely either.

“We’re going to do what we can, but people are not really willing to come forward to identify anybody,” Lindsey said.

The woman has since recovered from her physical injuries, but painful emotional reminders persist. “This caused her some great problems,” Lindsey said. “She has been relying on her family and friends for support to get through it all.”

Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call Oakland police at (510) 238-3426.

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