Shepard Fairey's Arrest: A Firsthand Account

Dave Combs, the editor of PEEL Magazine, was in the cab carrying Shepard Fairey and his wife Amanda from his hotel to the ICA on Friday night, where Shepard was about to DJ a sold-out party to celebrate the opening of his blockbuster exhibit "Supply and Demand." Combs just posted a first-hand account of the arrest, and he surmises that Boston police had actually planned to arrest Fairey in much more public fashion. Here's a quick excerpt:

It is my belief that the Boston Police Department had carefully planned to serve their warrants in front of an audience of approximately 800 excited Shepard Fairey fans, some of whom had reportedly paid as much as $500 on Craigslist for a ticket to the event. In my opinion, the BPD had at the very least set out to make a public spectacle of the arrest, and at worst were intent on provoking the agitated crowd to riot. They clearly had it out for Mayor Menino, and had engineered the perfect scenario with which to simultaneously tie Menino to a "criminal graffiti vandal" and conveniently show up to be the heroes of their own story.

Read the entire piece here.