MARION, Ala. – Two Alabama families that had been fighting for years turned their feud into a full-scale riot Monday outside a small-town city hall, with up to 150 screaming people hurling tire irons and wielding baseball bats. Eight people were arrested, and at least four were hurt, Trooper John Reese said. Two were taken to hospitals. The town's police chief was hit in the head with a crowbar but was OK.
The two- or three-year-old feud apparently prompted a fight earlier in the day at a high school, after a window was shot out of a home Sunday night. Then, "all hell broke loose" later in the day, said Sgt. Carlton Hogue of the Perry County Sheriff's Department.
"It was a full-scale riot is what it was," said Tony Long, mayor of the town of 3,300 about 85 miles west of Montgomery.
Hogue said the rioters were "throwing jack irons, throwing tire irons, anything they could get their hands on." Some people carried baseball bats and brooms....Police called in reinforcements from surrounding cities. Some officers wore riot gear, and many planned to stay overnight to help maintain order.
Judson College, a church-affiliated women's school with about 300 students in downtown Marion, issued an alert asking students to stay out of the downtown area for 24 hours as a precaution. (story courtesy of the AP)
Step aside, Capulets and Montagues. Back of the line, Hatfields and McCoys. These 2 families know how to throw down. I thought having a window shot out down in Alabama was just an every-day occurrence, but apparently that's how motherfuckers get jack irons and tire irons thrown at them down in the dirty-dirty.
And does anybody know what the difference between a jack iron and a tire iron is? And why the fuck did these 2 families have so many irons at their disposal? Are they NASCAR pit crews or something?
The papers can say whatever they want, but everybody knows this was much longer in the making than just 2 or 3 years. Somebody says something about somebody else's mother, who is actually Hank's cousin and sister at the same time, and Hank up and calls out Billy Ray for sleeping with his ex's father's sister, Tammy, back in 1995 and before you know it you've got a battle royale taking place at City Hall, police chiefs getting concussed, and the National Guard getting called in to restore order. It's redneck drama 101: when everybody is related to everybody else, there's bound to be issues aplenty.
All I know is, if I was one of the 300 people unlucky enough to be attending Judson College, my ass would have been sitting front row on the city hall steps with a bag of Baked Lays and 6-pack of Bud Ice taking in the action. What the fuck else are those kids supposed to do for entertainment in fucking Marion, Alabama??!! If school officials were more in tune with what was going on in the town they could have sold tickets to this thing and raised some money for a party for their graduating seniors so they wouldn't have to have the ceremony in someone's backyard again.
It's stories like this that bring a tear to my eye and make me want to stand up and sing the National Anthem. America, Fuck Yeah!
