One of my friends was trampled by an HPD horse at Westheimer & Stanford, while watching the parade.
Instead of using the horses to just walk down the street and move people back from the parade, they had them stop and do those circle maneuvers they do, and people couldn't get out of the way, and the horse knocked my friend down, kicking her in the knee, back of the head, and mouth - she may loose some teeth.
The horses / cops would just move up and down the street, with the one in front shouting, "Get out of the street!" but since they had no microphone or megaphone, no one could hear them coming. They continued to do this throughout the night, and the horses were a danger every time they came by.
Note: My friend was not wild or unruly or drunk or anything like that. Simply a middle-aged woman with her husband and a group of friends down to see the parade and support Pride.
There was a doctor in the crowd, and he helped her until the ambulance came, and then she went off to Park Plaza.
Also, the cop(s) never even said, "I'm sorry."
Report from a friend of her husband:
I spoke with Bill a couple of times last night from the ER and got an email from him early hours of this morning. They did a cat-scan and thankfully Kirste has no brain swelling! She has a laceration on her chin so deep that it went almost all the way through to the inside of her mouth, but the ER doc couldn’t stitch inside because of bacteria (?). She’ll have to follow up with a plastic surgeon for that. They also did x-rays on her leg and no broken bones. She has lacerations on her leg and arm, is bruised all over, and missing teeth. They released her to go home very early hours of the morning.
I’m sure she’ll be very sore for several days, and that’s even before her dental and cosmetic surgery ordeal begins. For those who watched the nightmare of her being repeatedly trampled, it’s amazing that she is relatively okay. Bill is madder than hell, as he should be!
Link to newspaper story: There are 25 pages of readers' comments."Police horse tramples Montrose resident at Pride parade"
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6501652.htmlHere's some of my response to the cops' testimony in the newspaper story:I'm pretty angry about the whole thing. Being an eye witness, besides the sheer horror of what Kirste went through, I have to say much of what the cops are quoted as saying in the paper is pure lies...
-the horses were NOT "moving slowly"
-they did NOT use whistles
-no one could hear the "verbal commands"
-there was no time to get out of the way
-people were NOT "pouring into the streets"
-Kirste was the only one "not obeying" ??? The fact is, the horses are HUGE, and they came so quickly, and moved so irradically, no one had a chance to get out of the way. Several people were buffeted by the horses, and Kirste is the one who happened to be knocked down and then under the horse.
-Once they knocked her down, the horses started moving in circles and backing up - classic "crowd control" maneuvers. That's why she got stomped over and over again.
-The officers didn't even know they had knocked down and trampled a human being until the crowd started yelling at them to STOP!
-Furthermore, at least one of the horses was already in an agitated state, as early as 9:00pm - his police officer told me so when I walked over and he wouldn't let me pet it.
-They're using carefully chosen words to cover for one another. IMO.
This is all horribly upsetting. It was horrible to watch, and I can't imagine how terrifying it was for Kirste, watching hooves flail at her from underneath the animal.