Carrying an homage to your favorite film series too far can land you in jail, at least in Texas.
Saturday, nine people in San Antonio were arrested as they recreated a scene from Mad Max: The Road Warrior on the local freeway, surrounding a tanker truck and brandishing machine guns. The fans were puzzled when other motorists reported the incident as an attack by a "terror militia."
One of the organizers said he couldn't understand how anyone could confuse the costumed crowd with a legitimate terror threat. "I honestly don't know how that could be, because Road Warrior was so over the top," he said.
The fans were on their way to a Mad Max marathon at a local cinema. After the fracas on the freeway, the cinema cancelled the marathon.
Next Saturday: a Texas Chainsaw Massacre marathon! Wendy's chili will be served during intermission.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Victor Plenty
I guess we really don't need another hero.
2 - Dave Nalle
Wow, new heights in stupidity.
Dave
3 - Eric Olsen
did they have a buttflaps guy?
4 - SFC SKI
genius knows no restraint.
5 - Eric Olsen
we have our own Feral Boy at home
6 - SnakeFarm
Bad press this. Not at ALL what happened. Bunch of rookie San Antonio cops freaked out on some movie fans and trumped up a bunch of charges. These guys were not carring anything that even looked like a gun.
A typical case of too many cops with nothing to do.
7 - Victor Plenty
Paranoiadome: two Texans enter, one Texan leaves -- under arrest.
As long as you don't give your Feral Boy any razor-edged boomerangs, Eric, you're way ahead of the people in this news item.
8 - seth
This is a really inaccurate description of the event. Even the San Antonio tv news mis-reported it saying the people were arrested for filming a movie without a permit. In truth, it was a biker 'ride' from Boerne, TX to the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in San Antonio. The participants were in costumes inspired by the Mad Max trilogy. They also had a tanker truck in the procession. Here's the official website for the event-- www.roadwarusa.com
seth
9 - Victor Plenty
"Roadwarusa"? How could that make anyone nervous?
Maybe the event itself was innocuous, but what an unfortunate choice of name.
10 - bhw
It's important to scowl and look bad and sound bad and be all manly and shit.
11 - ChrisM
Been busy searching for news of this. I was one of the people arrested and detained, for 20 hours! And I was one of the passengers! There were no 'machine guns' and only three or four people who were dressed up.One of the pick-ups had a PVC replica of the four barreled 'arrow-gun' from the movie and one person had a crosbow with a loose piece of rope across the bow-part. Only two bikers were involved. One person had an exact replica of the Interceptor, he brought from Australia.We drove the speed limit, following the tanker truck, we used turn signals and kept in straight line. Luckily, he held back to make a dramatic apperance at the Alamo Drafthouse, or he would have been arrested too. As a matter of fact, the police even let the tanker truck driver go, only to arrest him later.
Most of the cops laughed, but two of them didn't find it funny at all. One even had to look up in a book of code violations on what to charge us on.
All 12 of us are already talking about a class-action mulit-million dollar lawsuit against San Antonio and SAPD over this.
12 - DrPat
Seth, these fans may not have intended what happened, but that doesn't negate what did occur.
The motorists who called it in reported that they were "brandishing machine guns." When the fans were arrested, it was for "creating an obstruction" on the highway.
The nine who were arrested for obstructing were not charged with carrying "toy" machine guns (although they were). Two other bikers were charged with possession of prohibited knives.
The whole scene could qualify for one of those "people don't always use common sense" commercials.
13 - SFC SKI
I am still laughing about this one. OF course, when SAPD settles out of court you guys will be laughing all the way to the bank, just do me one favor and try to recreate,"the Getaway" when you go to deposit the check.
14 - Eric Olsen
I got food poisoning in San Antonio on my first honeymoon - bad burrito
15 - SnakeFarm
I used to have a "Mad Max" looking VW Baja Bug. One night, an SAPD low-brow followed me for over an hour waiting for me to make a mistake. He finally got me for “failure to signal” a left hand turn (from a LEFT-TURN-ONLY lane too boot). He reminded me of the rabid ROTC guy from Animal House. I wanted to do a "Flounder" imitation but I said yes-sir to everything he sprayed at me because I was pretty sure he was looking for a reason to use some of the shiny black cop equipment he had hanging off his bat-belt there.
That's what happened here as well.
Just like in Waco Texas a few years ago...
A few high testosterone/low IQ rookies just got out of GWB's Homeland Security Training Camp and Jackboot Shop and were looking to try out all of their cool Krav Maga anti-terrorist moves but when they got to the “SCENE OF THE CRIME” and found that there was nothing to get into the newspaper story about they JUST HAD TO DO SOMETHING and rather than take a cold shower or learn to face disappointment like the rest of us, they’d just invent a threat to SAVE AMERICA from. They had to trump up some bogus charges to cover their butts and pick somebody to crucify (Hi Chris!).
... except and THANK GOD, in this case, they didn't follow the guy home and burn his kids to death with a tank.
Peace,
sf
16 - Christopher Fenner
I am he! the one who put this RW151 together and all I can say is most of you have it wrong. You talk of us being idots and stupid, but who is listening to the media? There were no machine guns, neither of the "bikers" (we're not harley riders either if that is what you think this implies)were charged with weapons. The weapons charges were leavied upon a couple of really nice youths (one is an eagle scout "no really") and reenacts WWII stuff with police officer friends. I had notified the police through their PR Dept. but I guess there was some miscomunication and confustion. All you mindless blogers go ahead and believe the media if you like, but we that were there know the truth. This is a good lesson for yours and my kids that we are only one step away from a Hitler run society....
17 - Chris Beaumont
This whole thing made me smile.
Thanks for that.
Is it true they cancelled the marathon? That would suck.
18 - Dave Nalle
Christopher:
We're here so you can set the record straight. I think it was an amusing stunt, and the stupidity of the police certainly exceeds that of the participants.
But regardless, aren't you glad this mindless blog is here so you can get your side of the story out?
Dave
19 - Shark
Can't wait for the Manchurian Candidate revival...
20 - DrPat
Yeah, they let the Godfather retrospective weekend go ahead, because no one felt threatened by violin cases...
21 - Victor Plenty
Worst fear: violin cases might contain... violins.
22 - FarmSnake
Yeah I would have been there had it not been for a complete and total inability to manage a calendar. Prob just as well because I have an almost equally total inability to mind my tounge when confronted by megalo-manical authority figurines.
in 200?!
I saw Chris on the local news and thought he did a good job of thwarting the medias best efforts to goose-step along with whatever tripe the the SAPD feeds them.
I wouldnt be suprised to find out that somebody DID call SAPD and felt it necessary to embellish their report in order to get sombody to stop chewing long enough to check something out.
I've been collecting image clips of this story since it broke and Will make them available soon.
... Can't wait to get behind RW
Hey! how about I-10 between El Paso and San Antonio? A few hundred miles of the most Austrailian looking part of the US and people are used to seeing strange stuff there.
23 - Eric Olsen
so what DID happen? Speak truth to power.
24 - cyouincourt007
Count me in for the Texas Chainsaw Marathon...I wonder if the "megalo-manical authority figurines" got away from the donut shop to check this one out
Mad Max Rocks
25 - SnackFood
Yeah, I fancy myself a writer...
but I'm training to be a cage fighter!
sf