Rangers' Goal: Policing Without Being Like Police

Rangers’ Goal: Policing Without Being Like Police

By Marti Churchill

(News Staff Reporter)

How on earth do they keep order at free concerts, anyway?

Simple. Just call in the Psychedelic Rangers.

The Rangers began in 1969 for the Community Parks Program according to Karen Young of the Parks Program. "Originally, we just asked people to take care of their own trash and take care of themselves during free concerts. The Psychedelic Rangers were sort of an everybody type of thing," she says. "Now part of the group is a core of internal security workers." 

The Community Parks Department was first organized to put on the free concerts held on Sundays during the summer next to Huron High. 

Genie Plamondon, a "head Ranger," says her group is part of the Tribal Council, which also organizes the Ann Arbor Sun newspaper, Children's Community Center, and Ann Arbor People's Produce Co-op. The Council tries to affect "all aspects of our lives in an alternative way," she says. 

Young people who become Rangers work not only at free concerts, but at the New World Co-op movies and the annual Blues and Jazz Festival. This year, with the free concerts over, the Rangers are again focusing on keeping order at the festival, which begins tonight. 

Inside the festival, 112 Rangers will be on duty, with a salary of $2 an hour. Just outside the fence, another 80 will be working on traffic control, says Plamondon. "They're called Blues and Jazz Festival Staff rather than Rangers," she says.

"I'm a Ranger. I've been one for two years," comments Duncan Craig, 17, a junior at Huron High. "When we ranger at movies, our main objective is to stop people from running through without paying for a ticket.

"We stop them from making too much noise, and keep them from smoking in the auditorium." The New World Co-op shows old silent movies or popular movies on the U-M campus.

"With free concerts, we stop people from selling real bogus drugs and we try to stop rip-offs (thefts). And we take care of the bucket drive - passing those little orange buckets around to the people in the field so they can help pay for the concert," Craig said. 

During the summer, free concerts are held next to Huron High featuring various rock and roll groups. However, Craig points out these events are not really "free." The band is paid $50 for expenses and the portable restrooms, police cars, and electricity must be paid for. This comes to $1,200 for each concert, says Young. 

The Community Parks Program sponsors the free concerts, along with the Rangers' bucket drive. Several groups selling food at the concert chip in, too, if they make enough. These include Pizza Bob's, Continental Yogurt, Mountain High Ice Cream, and Eden Natural Foods.

Plamondon says no police are inside the park during concerts, so "the Rangers deal with everything the police would have to deal with. We really consider drugs an attack on our community. Lots of times we ask dealers to leave if they refuse to quit selling.

"We don't consider marijuana a dangerous drug, though," she adds.

How does someone become a Psychedelic Ranger?

It isn't very hard, according to Craig. "Anytime from 12 to 1 on the day of a concert, go up to any ranger and ask how to become one. They'll send you to one of the head rangers, and you'll get a ranger t-shirt. After the concert, you turn in the t-shirt and get paid." 

But to be a regular, serious Ranger, Plamondon suggests doing extra work. "We're getting more organized," she says. "To be a regular Ranger, you should go to the meetings and learn to deal with problems without being like the police and without being authoritarian. 

"Eventually we want to be in all public places, like the Diag, (central area of the U-M campus). We want to stop rip-offs without being like the police. But we do wear a uniform - t-shirts to identify us. We have the problem all the time of people relating to us as authority figures.