Nobody could believe the news Thursday on Park St. when word carried across the neighborhood that Joe Greathouse, the seemingly stable and upstanding young man from the north side of Liberty park, was taken into custody by Salt Lake's men in blue after an anonymous phone tip to the police indicated his involvement in an organized act of violence against a group of teenagers that use the park as a meeting place for their club: "Forgotten Realms." Several witnesses have come forward since the arrest of the alleged perpetrator with new evidence that supports the department's belief that Joe Greathouse had maliciously organized a group of young men to carry out violent acts against the medieval duel recreationists while they carried out meetings at the park.
The Club "Forgotten Realms" consists of a couple dozen loyal members, it costs nothing to join and there are no age limits. It's organizer, who wishes to be known by his pseudonym "Elric the Elflord" answering to the recent threats against he and his following, says that most members just saw it while and he and his friends doing it at the park and decided it looked fun. Members take turns in mock sword-fights using wooden replicas that imitate the weapons of their respective "Forgotten Realms" characters, therefore members are encouraged, but not required, to wear their character's costume and for the length of the gathering take upon themselves the role of their character. Elric says "When you stand there wearing the pointy ears and the cape, holding a wooden tonfa in your hand and you know that if you lose, Elric the Elflord dies, in order to save him you must become him."
While slight injuries are commonplace, since the conception of the "Forgotten Realms" group there has never been a reported incident which required immediate medical attention. "That's why I'm so pissed!" Says Elric "We've never done anything to them, we're peaceful and welcome everyone and anyone without discrimination, we'd never hurt anyone and they have no reason to hate us." He's talking about a group of young people that meet at the northern most edge of the park, they call themselves "Shinobi" but Elric calls them "punks." Shortly after Elric started his club, another young man that frequented the park on weekends, our Joe Greathouse, started his own. While both are duel recreationist groups, "Shinobi" is somehow loosely based on stealth tactics used by mythical "ninjas" and the participants are required to take part in ninja training rituals, and dress entirely in black. "These rituals," Says Officer Sangorgio of the Downtown SLPD bicycle patrol unit "are harmfully violent and are carried out under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, that's where we draw the line between the right to assemble and organized assault."
The ninja training itself, similar to the mock swordfights Elric takes pleasure in, isn't so harmful and usually ends with the fleeing one of the two combatants. Only trouble is, while Elric and his group practice against each other, Joe Greathouse and his group use the medieval duel recreationists for practice. Elric claims that attendance has reduced by half since the first aggression against them in June of 2003 when a half dozen Shinobi rode in on bicycles with water balloons and disrupted their meeting, riding out as quickly as they came. "We never see them coming," says Elric while describing the plethora of violent acts carried out against his club. "They always run in and out before we have a chance to even try and talk to them or try and reason with them. It used to be we would practice by the walkway on the East side of the park, it was good because we had some privacy and it was right by the water fountain. Now we have to practice on the dying Soccer Field because those punks would hide in the trees and then jump out and run around kicking and punching and throwing things."
That's not even the start of the troubles the ninja combat re-creationists are causing the medieval duel re-creationists. "Lathia", a senior in high school, says that the surprise homemade blow dart attack the Shinobi committed against her and her friends one Saturday left her so frightened and paranoid that she "can't set foot in another park again." Elric tells a story of when the "Punks" had actually dug a pit near his group's meeting place, covered it with a makeshift tarp and hid inside it for countless hours waiting to spring out and attack. Often times the medieval re-creationsists will try and defend themselves with their mock weapons, almost always resulting in increased injury. Fact is: there's hardly a person among the medieval swordfighters that doesn't have at least one horror story brought to life by these reckless ninjas. Officer Sangorgio claims that the first report the SLPD received in regards to the Shinobi took place almost 3 months after the aggression began, "These kids are dorks," Says Officer Sangorgio "they don't want to be made fun of, if they'd called the police and said that ninjas were attacking them in the park while they were swordfighting, we may not have taken them seriously." But on July 19th at 3am, Scott Perkins, cashier at the 7-11 gas station across the street from the park, told an officer that an intoxicated young man dressed as a ninja had tried to buy cigarettes without an ID. When he'd refused to sell without ID the young man assaulted him with a wooden sword in the shape of a katana blade, a sword used by Mythical ninjas. "We were excited when the magic dorks brought us new info on these ninja dorks because we'd been trying to figure out this strange 7-11 assault." Says Sangorgio in regards to his feelings when Elric finally came to the police for help. The 7-11 cashier assaulted says "He really just kept poking me with the end of his wooden stick and tried to pull my hair, I could've fought back easily but the whole thing was just too weird."
Oscar Talbot, a professor of eastern mythology, believes that these attacks may represent more to the masked assailants than at first meets the eye. "If you look at the calculated manner in which they attack, their ratio of success, which is so far 100% if we can assume that their objective is to simply maraud this other clan, all this under the pressure of a high-risk and low profit activity, you cannot deny the serious efforts by these ninjas to disband, or sabotage this contrasting club. There's been an enormous effort on the part of the Shinobi, without any terrible backlash from the medievalists, who rightly so shouldn't encourage such behavior with any kind of response. Essentially, by terrorizing these other nice young people the Shinobi have expanded their territory and may increase violent activity until their fantasy is shattered by realistic police intervention." Salt Lake Officers couldn't agree more, plain clothes officers now stand in on the weekend activities at Liberty Park. Elric is skeptical that the police can help "They're fast and they're tricky." he says "Without a leader they're even more threatening, but I'm sure they'll lose interest in us with some time and patience." So far it's worked, it's been 3 days since the arrest and not a single ninja sighting has been reported anywhere near Liberty Park.
Joe Greathouse was formally charged with criminal mischief and aggravated assault, and says he'll fight the ridiculous accusation and sue for wrongful prosecution when he goes to trial some time next year. "Those dudes are weird." Joe said in response to a question regarding his acquaintance with the accusers, the medieval duel recreationists, a growing number of whom are coming forward ready to take action against the Shinobi. State Prosecutor Ernest Ball claims "If they can find the costume, a wooden sword, or anything left behind that could trace this guy to the crime that would be a start." But so far there's no such evidence, giving credit to Elric's argument that the police can't effectively protect his group. Regardless of evidence, the ninja attacks have stopped since the police started putting pressure on the alleged Shinobi leader, who spends most of his free time doing homework and playing video games. "They can't prove anything, they have no honor." Joe told reporters as he fled the courthouse after posting his $5,000.00 bail Friday afternoon, he yelled it out a cracked window "No honor!" for a second time before driving away with a lit cigarette between his lips.
