By Frank Wells and Bob Hurt

A folk music concert in Piedmont Park Sunday afternoon wound up in a wild melee with police hurling tear gas canisters and arresting about 20 persons.

The disturbance started after a detective arrested a youth and charged him with interfering with an officer

Thirty-five to 40 policemen were used in quelling the disturbance, but there were another 60 on hand in a bus who were not called into action. Two policemen were slightly injured and one woman was admitted to Grady Hospital with bruises on her head she said came from a policeman’s nightstick.

The woman was identified by police as Mrs. Jon Johnson, 41, wife of a philosophy professor at Georgia Tech. She was later released after being given a copy of charges of assault and battery.

Several canisters of tear gas were used in attempts to disperse the 1,000 and 1,500 youngsters cavorting and yelling on the biggest playing field at Piedmont Park.

Charges made by police ranged from interfering with an officer to inciting to riot.

The disturb an started when Detective C. R. Price moved through the crowd in what he called a “narcotics investigation.

He was followed by a member the Atlanta hippie community whom he had arrested in the past.

The "hippie" later identified as George Nikis, 17, of 1294 Piedmont Ave NE. warned bystanders that the plainclothes officer was a policeman.

Finally, Price attempted to arrest the man. Others of the excited crowd immediately gathered around and took the arrested man away from the officer. Price called for reinforcements and in a manner of minutes there were scores of policemen in the park.

The weirdly dressed and bearded People chanted,” This is our Park”, and “Get the pigs out of our park".

Police supt. Oscar Jordan achieved some semblance of order when he arrived at the park shortly after 5 P.M. Jordan moved the police to one side of the playing field, stood in the center of the group and asked them to sit and listen to some of their own leaders.

Cooler heads among those attending the concert asked the crowd to disperse peacefully and there was some argument about who should leave first – police or the angry youths.

The trouble seemed to fade when both police and those who had attended the concert began to leave simultaneously.

Mayor Ivan Allen had little to say to the crowd and would not answer some of the questions thrown at him. However, the mayor granted permission for the music festival to begin again and a band set up under a pavilion just as the mayor left the park.

Many of the hippies returned. Police Chief Herbert Jenkins in plain clothes, also arrived at the park as excitement died.

Some of the concert-goers shouted insults and attempted to retaliate against police dispersal measures.

All of the youths were angry – most at the police, but some of those among them who had started and continued the disturbance. Several climbed up on a stone wall and tried to get the crowd to leave peacefully, but their efforts were in vain.

Price explained that he was at the park on a narcotics investigation and was moving from group to group among the music listeners. As he moved, a young man he had previously arrested followed him, telling each group that Price was a police officer.

“I told him to leave the park and if he didn’t I was going to arrest him for interfering with an officer.” Price said, “He didn’t leave so I arrested him.”

One of the youths, Dennis Burch, who said he saw what happened, told a reporter that Price drew his pistol and would not show identification that he was a policeman.

Price and other officers finally got the arrested man into a police car, but the crowd would not let it leave the park. A general call went out and the whole evening watch turned out to help the beleaguered officers in the park.

Several tires on police cars were slashed and six police cars in all were damaged.

Some of the young people had to be manhandled into paddy wagons but there were no serious injuries.

At one time, just after canisters of tear gas had flown into the dense crowd on the field, some rocks came flying back. Police rushed into the field and dragged several limp youngsters back to put them in the paddy wagon.

One of those carried by four policemen was a woman. As she was carried off, another woman, hair streaming, ran behind, tears running down her face, shouting,” They got Patty!” They got Patty!”

Police sealed off all entrances to the park but were unable to keep hundreds of hippies from the 14^th Street area from entering the unfenced park.

Hippies at the scene blamed police for the riot and officers said they used extraordinary restraint under hostile conditions.

Price said the initial violence came when he tried to take Nikis to a patrol car. He said he was surrounded by about 200 persons who began pulling at his clothing and shouting threats, urged on by a youth talking through a loudspeaker system.

He was surrounded and in danger of being injured, Price said, so he had “no choice” but to pull his service revolver. He said he pointed the gun in the air and the crowd backed up “about two feet”.

A few seconds later they moved back in and jerked Nikis away, Price said, “I wasn’t about to let them stomp me into the ground. But I wasn’t going to shoot anybody,” he said.

Lt. H. V. Gunter, who had stopped near the crowd on a routine patrol, said he spotted Nikis a few minutes later and arrested him. The crowds moved in and encircled the patrol car, began rocking it and let the air out of the tires, broke the headlights and pulled the distributor wires, police said.

At this point, Gunter called for tear gas and additional help. Several times the crowd threw grenades back at police, one of them landing under the disabled patrol car holding Nikis.

Nikis had been handcuffed to the inside of the car to prevent his removal by the crowd, and Price moved through the crowd and took the youth from the car when the gas fumes blew inside.

Detective J.D. Gann, Price’s partner, said rocks, bottles and bricks were thrown at police. He said he was hit by a knife that cut through his coat, but caused no injury.

Officer C.E. Thrasher said he saw “seven or eight” young people “stomping” a lone policeman. He said a girl pulled a policeman’s pistol and “was aiming it at an officer” when another policeman hit her arm and deflected her aim. The gun discharged and the bullet hit the ground, Thrasher said.

About a dozen policemen said they were hit glancing blows from rocks and other objects thrown at them. Patrolman D.C. Gundlack, 23, and Edwin W. Tillis, 22, were both treated at Grady Hospital for minor cuts and bruises. Tillis was scratched on the face and kicked in the kidney, an officer said.

Hippies and their lawyers told a vastly different story about the circumstances and actions at the riot.

Al Horn, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was called to the park when the fighting was still in progress. “I’ll tell you what I saw,” he said. “I saw a police riot.”

“There were three or four bad policemen there provoking the whole thing. Whenever the crowd quieted down, they charged in with their night sticks and stirred the whole thing up again.”

Supt. Jordan said he asked Horn, who often represents hippies in their legal problems, to try to reason with the crowd and settle them down.

Horn, who came to the city jail after the riot along with about four other lawyers who were taking statements from the youths, said he was disgusted with “the lack of control” of some police.

“They were asking me to use my good officers to help them but they were not restraining their own people,” Horn said.

Horn said he has several witnesses who saw police clubbing hippies and saw a uniformed policeman pull his pistol and fire into the crowd. No one was reported injured by gunfire.

Jim Gwin, 26, a staff member of the underground newspaper “The Great Speckled Bird” said he saw a policeman take aim and fire into the crowd.” He also said that when Detective Price was surrounded, he held his pistol in Nikis’ back and said,” if you people come near me, I’ll blow his brains out.”

Gwin said the hippies would not be satisfied until all uniform and plainclothes policemen are barred from shadowing hippie gatherings.

According to police, 23 persons were arrested as a result of the park disturbance on charges ranging from interfering with an officer to assault and battery and inciting to riot. Seven of those arrested were released and two juveniles were taken to juvenile home.

A spokesman at Grady Hospital said he knew of no hippies who were brought there for treatment. Dr. Johnston, whose wife was allegedly clubbed by a policeman, said he found her handcuffed to a wheelchair at Grady. She was treated and released.

Price said that in addition to Nikis, he arrested William Fibben, 25, for interfering with an officer when he tried to take Nikis from him, and also David Slier, 22, on charges of creating turmoil when he “tried to antagonize the crowd.”

Price said he had arrested Nikis previously on charges of possession of marijuana, but the case is till pending. Nikis was wearing a brown jacket and slacks and shirt with a clerical collar when he was apprehended. He also had a large hat laced with feathers.