DRIVE starring Mike Vallely: Two Ends of The Spectrum (2008) - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wfGrjgRlFk Transcript: (00:05) [Music] a skateboarder is an environmental artist [Music] to escape order a curb is not just a curb a wall is not just a wall stairs are not just stairs and railings serve a whole other purpose a skateboarder redefines his or her environment and in redefining one's environment the skateboarder realizes true freedom for if you can redefine your environment you can redefine anything [Music] (01:31) so [Music] [Music] [Music] empowered and intensified skateboarders live by higher and more creative ideals celebrated in the world of action sports and gaining respect elsewhere but not everywhere sorry it's okay get back okay just it's okay on go skateboarding day (02:40) june 21st 2007 in hot springs arkansas the ideals of several young skateboarders as an adult i accept the risks associated with riding my skateboard in hostile territory but to see young people treated this way is very disheartening to me the city of hot springs is a beautiful tourist-based community known for its natural spring water that flows out of the ground at a temperature of 143 degrees fahrenheit spas shops and parks dot the historic downtown where skateboarding is strictly prohibited i wanted to go to hot springs (03:33) to meet these kids and to encourage them to rise above what transpired on go skateboarding day and not let it become a defining moment of negativity in their lives [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so prior to go skateboarding day 2007 what was the skate scene like here in hot springs we used to skate downtown all the time but we can't now and like this is where most of the spots are you had been frequenting these spots before this incident (04:35) like i'd only gotten one ticket before that and i was at the parking garage they're not rolling out the red carpet to you but there wasn't enough prior history to really be able to predict what was going to happen and do you think it's just a bunch of bad decisions in the heat of the moment or do you think it's the result of the overall mentality in the town i think like right before all this happened they like decided to crack down on skateboarding and we had no idea so you guys got your courage up the energy was right (05:06) you were feeling good it was your day it was go skateboarding day and you crossed the line but i don't think you guys could have imagined what was gonna happen next i don't know i feel betrayed by people who are supposed to look over me so what's it like going going back downtown now walking around kind of a strange deal you avoid it yeah like when we're downtown people recognize us and they'll try and say stuff to us so we try not to bother with it although we love like we think the beautiful place and the place we can (05:37) enjoy but we really can't because of the people when i hear that i hear this bitterness people your age shouldn't be bitter about the place they live and the way they're treated people handle stuff differently every cop does different things with different situations but that guy just took it to a whole nother level and you shouldn't have and i think if he would have handled it like would have took it easy you know it'd be way less awkward in hot springs but he didn't and now it's just really (06:11) uncomfortable to live here you feel alienated you feel marginalized you feel out of place you feel like you don't belong especially like carrying a skateboard so this is the uh parking garage where all the fun started yep [Music] we come spilling out here and then we went and we turned right down the street all right so you guys are just uh you're just cruising it and yeah was it a situation where uh you put the word out to everybody you knew like we're gonna meet here we're gonna do this and then stop and session a few spots (06:46) so by the time you're right here you kind of realize like this thing is out of control and you came back over here to try and help yeah we just wanted to come back and find out what was going on because we had taken the kid down here so we felt like we were responsible for him did you realize that it was a police officer at the time yeah he was just telling us all to get back and stuff and my friend skyler took a picture and like he saw him take the picture and he was like looked up and he was like you and like (07:17) skyler just kind of started running off like just walking slowly and then the cop got up to go after him he realizes that the kid just took a photo of him and he just takes off chasing skylar yeah and skyler got away yeah and then the officer comes back over here that's whenever he told me to sit down and i was like no i haven't done anything that's whenever he comes after me so i just took off and he catches me by the throat and starts choking why did you say no because i didn't think i'd done anything wrong really (07:44) wasn't even thinking about it he started shaking her around and like lifting her off the ground so i kind of freaked out just trying to get him to stop or something you know i thought he was gonna like hurt somebody they're scared yeah you don't understand what's going on [Music] you're filming it true so eventually he has you lay down on the ground yeah he uh cuffed me and put me on my stomach he told me if i moved he's gonna spray me with mace which i didn't understand because i hadn't said anything to him (08:27) or i'll spray you you guys all eventually left in cop cars handcuffed that's got to be surreal start the day just going out to have some fun and the next thing you know you're being carted off in a cop car with handcuffs on yeah blown out of proportion way too fast those nuts oh you're in the race the valuation said [Music] law enforcement officer resisting arrest violation of the city ordinance when you guys think about it and you guys watch the video do you feel like in some way you're responsible for what (09:10) happened everyone was responsible for their actions but it could have been handled differently and we would have done different things if the police had done different things this something that you can you're going to get over that can be fixed in some way can be mended is there any kind of reconciliation is there any way that would make you guys feel better about what happened skating is our life that's what we want to do every day but for like six months we were on house arrest or probation or doing community service (09:40) or just couldn't go anywhere because we were going to be in trouble or be seen by somebody what they're supposed to do is give you a ticket maybe even take your board and have your parents come down there and grab it i mean you don't get pulled over for speeding and have them just jerk you out of the car and start choking you it's not right no not the way to handle it you're absolutely right my impression from from meeting you and spending time with you and then even from what i saw in the video it's not (10:07) like you're these rowdy obnoxious out of control teenagers that have no respect for anything you're just skateboarders who love skateboarding right right i think people stereotype us and have a misconception of who we are like they think we like vandalize or do drugs or whatever and we're just not like that so you think the reputation of some skateboarders preceded you and uh you were punished for that yeah for their actions we were punished so if you guys could talk to this officer talk to the judge (10:41) with you the opportunity to to say something about yourselves before this incident before they pass judgment on you what would you want to say to them like not all skateboarders are bad there's i mean sure there's bad ones but there's bad everything they're bad football players bad basketball players there's a stereotype that every skateboard is bad and it's not true at all you know you can't let that be a defining moment in your life something that's going to loom over you and something you carry with you for (11:12) your whole lives you just can't you gotta get past it because if you don't they win and we as skateboarders can never let them win ever i mean this could happen like a thousand more times we'll never stop skating you know just love it too much [Music] the events of go skateboarding day have crippled these young people not because of the violence of the initial encounter with the police officer where things happened in the heat of the moment and poor decisions were made on both sides but rather because of the fact that (11:52) these kids were singled out and punished while the police officer was exonerated from any wrongdoing thus spurring a city to shun these kids that is the real crime in hot springs not some kids skateboarding where they were not supposed to not the inappropriate actions of one police officer but the fact that a community has made these kids feel like the lowest of criminals that is what makes this entire incident so shameful and something all communities can and should learn from [Music] skaters for public skate parks john (12:41) lazar understands the importance of skaters and communities finding common ground a non-profit advocacy group sps is comprised of an international network of volunteers providing education and information to ensure that skateboarders everywhere are properly facilitated a lifelong skater john recognizes that progress often comes with small victories but he also knows that when skaters in their community come together great things are possible [Music] in the community you live in this is what you got that's right this (13:24) is what we ended up with and this was a result of almost three years of hard work project like this you kind of walk a fine line because you live in this community you work in this community you fought for this but as a skater you know this isn't really sufficient we took what we could get so that we could get the kids in an area because skateboarding is banned throughout the community the kids could only skate on their property in their driveways and that wasn't going to cut it so i'm going to use this as a stepping stone (13:55) we're going to show them that there's skaters that this park will be successful and we hope to evolve this into uh into a better park that'll better serve the community this is a this is a step in a process a step in the process [Music] just down in hot springs arkansas imagine you're familiar with what happened there and go skateboarding day what was your initial reaction to that anger how can you make kids criminals for riding a skateboard it just doesn't make sense to me at all this community that really hasn't (14:39) embraced skateboarding they gave them a skate park but they put it like the worst part of town and they keep shutting it down because there's all kinds of problems there these kids kind of feel like they live in a town that doesn't care about them yeah that's how they feel anyway that's kind of one of the big problems we're facing you know i imagine that your organization is facing you know every day towns are banning skateboarding communities abandoning skateboarding and it's hard for kids to have a voice (15:11) without somebody standing behind them but we can all learn something from what we saw on that video absolutely absolutely we can learn that we never want to be a community like that it's coming down to the communities it's coming down the people who are going to make themselves players for the future of skateboarding yeah close to where we're at right now washington dc there was a group of guys of lifetime lifelong skaters like you and i and they banded together and built a skate park in the neighborhood that (15:43) everybody forgot and they had this concept to build it with a green mindset and now these kids that never saw a skateboard never rode a skateboard are at that skate park every day riding a skateboard not doing drugs in school and they've found a support network that they typically don't even have at home [Music] the green skate lab in washington dc is the brainchild of science teacher terry nostrand who along with her husband chris and a group of local skaters set out to build an environmentally friendly skate park made (16:29) out of recycled materials [Music] in the process they have not only created a truly unique piece of skateboarding architecture but also provided the neighborhood kids with a new way to express themselves [Music] okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] when you walk up on this i mean this looks pretty epic yeah it's it's there's nothing there's nothing quite like it i've never seen anything quite like it skateboard wise terry she took some of (17:32) her students on a field trip to mexico and i think there she saw a lot of people building houses out of tires and you know she just had the idea so the idea the idea to build the bowl out of tires that started with terry yes definitely what's the first thing you did i mean how do you actually incorporate using a tire the same way we used to build ramps back in the 80s was we just scavenged stuff outside we first collected a lot of tires from the like the potomac river watershed and we found big stacks the tires like uh 15 (18:02) feet tall and we saw trees growing through the tires that were 15 year old trees and you know in another five years it's the tire's gonna be squeezing around the tree and it's eventually gonna choke it out so you know like anything you can take away from the environment and put somewhere where it's going to be useful and it's not going to do that to mother nature so not only can you build a skate park that your community can use but you can do it in a way that where you're recycling and it's green and it's (18:31) eco-friendly and it's more cost effective more cost effective i'd say 75 if not more of the coping was recycled from an old swimming pool we recycle the fence from the site the drain actually feeds out into the park there and when the water drains out of the bullet you recycle rainwater i mean pretty much everything except for the concrete some of the rebar and summit pool block but for the most part i'd say that it's probably 85 recycled material it's positive right from the beginning it's skaters coming (19:04) together it's a green project it's something that's serving the community and the skate the global skate scene really yeah classroom yeah it's classroom it's a it's a positive place where you can come and do your thing express yourself [Music] people come from all over but there's local kids that have started skating oh yeah absolutely when this project started they came out and saw us we had one section built you know we're riding on that hey can i check that out yeah you can check it out once the project (19:40) was actually completed i think the cool thing was is that some of the neighbors around the park and in the neighborhood kind of came by to check it out we're like wow you know this is a really cool project and we're really glad that this is here and you know you know we didn't really know about skateboarding we didn't know what it could bring to the community and and you know they were stoked you know there was probably a lot of stereotypes about you know skateboarders that i think we've broken (20:04) down as you know the community sees us being cool with the kids and teaching them how to drop in or whatever you know i mean i've had parents come up to me and they've thanked me and said you know my kid skateboards and doesn't get into trouble because of this this park stands or this bowl stands as testament to what skateboarders can do when they put their minds to it but it's pretty cool to see just what you can give out to other people when they come up and are just stoked on skateboarding [Music] (20:50) skateboarding poses a real challenge to our communities and how we as communities address this challenge is really only a matter of perspective [Music] we can view skaters as a nuisance and a public threat or we can change our perspective ever so slightly and see the beauty and creativity in what they do skateboarders can either be treated like common criminals or embraced and championed as people who can help shape and grow our communities it's all about perspective tell them they are bad and they're liable to believe in (21:28) give them a chance to participate and see just how much they really have to offer the choice is in our hands [Music] you