Lip-synching entertainer disenchants audience

Crowd disturbance leaves 16 injured

? Thirteen people and three law enforcement officers suffered minor injuries in a disturbance during a weekend concert at an arena.

Tom Bos, Dodge City’s deputy police chief, said concertgoers who paid $20 for their seats inside Roundup Arena became upset Sunday when they realized they weren’t seeing the performer they expected Tejano musician Pedro Fernandez.

Instead, they were being entertained by an unidentified Colorado man posing as Fernandez, and a poor lip-synching rendition of his songs.

“Some of the folks in the crowd recognized that the Pedro Fernandez on the stage wasn’t the actual Pedro Fernandez,” Bos said. “The crowd got disturbed, got a little rowdy and began moving closer to the stage.”

Law enforcement officials from Dodge City were out-manned, Bos said, and called in reinforcements from the Ford County Sheriff’s Department, the Kansas Highway Patrol.

As a result of the pepper spray, 13 people in the crowd were treated on the scene by emergency medical crews, and one required hospital treatment.

Two Dodge City police officers and one Ford County sheriff’s deputy suffered bruises and abrasions trying to subdue concertgoers, Bos said.