A “Redneck Rave” in Kentucky, billed as “America’s wildest and craziest country party,” ended in mass arrests for drug possession, strangulation, and throat slitting. Via the Lexington Herald-Leader, one man was even impaled through the abdomen.
The event took place in Edmonson County in a town so small it doesn’t have a stoplight. The five-day festival was organized by country rapper Justin Time, and was supposed to boast “mud, music and mayhem.”
According to Sheriff Shane Doyle, he knew it would be trouble after performing a routine search on the very first arrivals. “The first vehicle that came through, we found meth, marijuana, and an open alcohol container,” he said. “And then one of the occupants had two active warrants… We were like ‘well, this doesn’t bode well for the weekend.’”
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But he had no idea how grisly things would get. One man had his throat slit by a purported friend. “They were intoxicated, they got into a fight, one of them slit the other one’s throat and then fled into the park,” Doyle said. The assailant has not been found.
Besides that, a 29-year-old Missouri man has been accused of strangling a woman after they got into a fight over a blanket. She told police he choked her “until she was losing consciousness.” The alleged assailant denies these claims, though he has no explanation for how she came to be covered in scratches and neck bruises.
While the Redneck Rave was consumed with violence, some of the worst injuries were accidental. One man was piloting an off-road side-by-side vehicle when he attempted to drive over two-to-three inch log. The log broke through his vehicle’s floor and impaled him through the stomach. “When it tried to come out through his back it was stopped by a steel plate behind his seat,” Doyle said.
Attendees also lost fingers and broke bones, though luckily nobody died. Altogether, The Sheriff and his deputies charged 48 people, including 30 drug and alcohol charges and six felonies. 14 people were arrested. Local taxpayers are on the hook for 44 hours of overtime for law enforcement, with more potentially coming — another Redneck Rave is scheduled for October.
The pandemic has seen an ugly stretch of violent raves. Almost exactly a year ago, a pair of quarantine raves in the UK hosted rape, multiple stabbings, and one death.
