Witness who filmed Delray melee describes chaotic scene




Cory Provost, a witness of the Delray Beach melee says the situation started over an argument with police

By Kate Jacobson 

A witness to a melee that broke out in Delray Beach on Saturday said the situation became heated when police officers approached a birthday party at a house in the Southwest neighborhood..
It lead to a 50-plus person melee that included a group of people forming a human shield to keep officers from a man who police wanted to detain.
Raw video of a melee that broke out in Delray Beach on Saturday, after Officers say they smelled marijuana in the area.
Cory Provost, a New York City resident who is visiting Delray Beach over the holidays, said about 30 people were at a birthday party on the corner of Southwest Eighth Avenue and Southwest Third Court just after 7:30 p.m. when an unmarked police car pulled up to the house.
He said two officers wearing uniforms got out of the car, walked onto the lawn and accused the partygoers of smoking marijuana. Provost said that wasn't true.
"There was a lot of shouting back and forth," he said. "The residents were asking the cops to leave the yard and they didn't do so."
Part of the exchange was caught on camera, which Provost uploaded to his YouTube channel.
Police Sgt. Nicole Guerriero late Wednesday said the footage doesn't show the entire incident. And because only a portion is being shown, police said, it's not a fully accurate depiction of what happened.
Officers smelled marijuana in the area, saw someone who they thought was smoking and followed him into the yard, Guerriero said Tuesday. In an arrest report, officers said the man they saw was a known drug user with whom they've had contact in the past.
Provost said the situation did get out of hand — for both the partygoers and the police. He said at first, people formed a semi-circle around police questioning them as to why they were there. When police started yelling at them, he said, the people became more agitated and began shuffling around.
"Then, a little later on, something was thrown," he said. "You heard a glass crack, I think a bottle or something was thrown, and I believe it hit the police vehicle."
Guerriero said the police vehicle's windshield was damaged in the skirmish.
In the arrest report, police said they were patrolling the area because it is an area known for high drug use.
Guerriero said Tuesday the officers were afraid of what could happen in the situation and called for backup. There were four officers and an estimated group of 70 people involved by the end of the scuffle, she said. It lasted for more than an hour.
Provost said police should've tried to calm down the group in this situation. When the partygoers questioned why the police were on private property, Provost said they should've gotten answers, not yelling from the police.
"There's a lot of rhetoric going around that if you question police you're anti-police, and I don't think that's the case," he said. "I think we want to have police approach situations with a little more compassion and respect because we, too, are human beings. If there was more trust in the community of our police, a lot of these situations wouldn't happen."