Sweet Corn Festival Ends Early After 70 Teenagers Erupt Into A Giant Brawl And Assault A Police Officer
CEDAR RAPIDS — The last day of the St. Jude Sweet Corn Festival went off without a hitch Sunday, a day after fights caused police to shut down it down early for the day. “Sunday we had a fantastic day and everything went smoothly,” said Mike Graeve, chairman of the festival. But fights on Saturday night led to the event being shut down early for the day. Public safety spokesman Greg Buelow said a 15-year-old boy was facing charges of disorderly conduct and interference with official acts in one fight. After that, a larger fight involving about 70 juveniles started. During that melee, a Cedar Rapids police officer was jumped and assaulted by a 16-year-old boy while the officer was taking another subject into custody, Buelow said. The officer was punched in the face and kicked while on the ground, and suffered minor injuries. That 16-year-old was arrested on one count of assault on a police officer. Police also arrested three boys — ages 12, 15 and 16 — and a 14-year-old girl on disorderly conduct charges. The fights prompted police to ask festival organizers to shut down the Sweet Corn Festival, Graeve said. It ended for the evening at 9:45 p.m.
The only people surprised by this is the people who have never been to the Sweet Corn Festival. Which is probably all of you. I’ve been going to the Sweet Corn Festival my whole life and it’s a goddamn miracle this hasn’t happened before. On the face, the Sweet Corn Festival is where families can go to enjoy rickety carnival rides, hang with carnies covered in grease, eat funnel cakes and enjoy some good ol’ fashioned sweet corn. Just good clean family fun. In reality, it’s a place where drunk teenagers from rival high schools hang out, talk shit to each other and throw punches at each others faces. Basically if you cram a bunch of hormonal male teenagers into a confined space, there’s gonna be fights. Never as big as this one though. 70 people is a fuck ton. And it’s all fun and games until a cop gets punched. Boys will be boys until one of those boys is wearing blue. So these kids are probably fucked. But hey, that’s Sweet Corn Festival Life.
PS- How is there no video of the giant brawl? How is that possible? LOL Iowa doesn’t have technology but seriously. 70 teenagers get into a massive fight and not a single person records it on their cell phone? That doesn’t seem likely. Show yourselves!