Range street dance melee is totally typical, right?

Iron Range street dances get a little rough sometimes, but seldom this rough. Last weekend’s Hibbing Jubilee Street Dance boiled over into a melee that may have had racial overtones. This is from Mark Stodghill’s story in the Duluth News Tribune:

“It’s supposed to be a fun family event and it’s been a great event for our city,” [Hibbing Police Investigator Dale] Wright said of this year’s Hibbing Jubilee Street Dance. “It brings people from outside our city. There’s a parade, stock car races in the evening hours, three bands playing. This incident just got out of control. I haven’t seen anything this serious in all the years I’ve been working the street dance.”

They’re still sorting out the exact nature of the incident, but six were arrested. Additional arrests were made across town for other incidents, all of them typical to street dances.

Meantime, the hometown Hibbing Daily Tribune put on a brave face with the subhead: “Average year for number of incidents, arrests.” Nothing to see here! Just another possibly racially motivated beating and counter-stabbing, and/or stabbing and racially motivated beating. Or maybe it wasn’t about race. Maybe it was about politics. Can we ever really know such things?

Did you know my wife and I hit it off at the Hibbing street dance 14 years ago? It’s true! We often remark on the miracle that we found each other there.

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