The Death of Meredith Hunter at Altamont
Meredith Curly Hunter (October 24, 1951 – December 6, 1969) was an 18-year-old American who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by The Rolling Stones, Hunter was involved in a scuffle with members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang serving as security guards. He subsequently drew a gun, and was stabbed to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro.
The incident was caught on camera and became a central scene in the documentary Gimme Shelter. Passaro was charged with murder, but was acquitted on self defense grounds after the jury was shown the footage.
Hunter, an 18-year-old from Berkeley, California, was nicknamed “Murdock” and described by friends to be a flashy dresser with a big Afro. Hunter, his girlfriend Patty Bredahoff, and another couple traveled from Berkeley to attend the Altamont Free Concert.
The Hells Angels had been hired to provide security for the concert in a deal that was rumoured to include $500 worth of beer. They stood directly in front of the bands in an effort to keep people off the unusually low stage.
Fueled by LSD and large amounts of amphetamines, the crowd had also become antagonistic and unpredictable, attacking each other, the Angels, and the performers. By the time the Rolling Stones took stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn as numerous fights began to erupt between Angels and crowd members and within the crowd itself. Projectiles started being thrown at the stage. The Angels retaliated by hurling back full cans of beer from their stockpile and swinging sawed-off weighted pool cues and motorcycle chains to drive the crowd farther back from the stage.
Lead singer Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones (who had already been punched by a concertgoer within seconds of emerging from his helicopter) was visibly intimidated by the unruly situation, urging everyone to “Just be cool down in the front there, don’t push around.” Within a minute of starting their third song, “Sympathy for the Devil“, a fight erupted in the front of the crowd, at the foot of the stage. After a lengthy pause and another appeal for calm, the band restarted “Sympathy” and continued their set with less incident until the start of “Under My Thumb“. At this point, two of the Hell’s Angels got into a scuffle with Hunter when he attempted to get onstage with other fans. One of the Hell’s Angels grabbed Hunter’s head, punched him, and chased him back into the crowd.
After a few seconds Hunter angrily returned to the front of the stage where, according to Gimme Shelter producer Porter Bibb, Hunter’s girlfriend Patty Bredahoff found him and tearfully begged him to calm down and move farther back in the crowd with her. By her report he was enraged, irrational and “so high he could barely walk”. Rock Scully, who could see the audience clearly from the top of a truck by the stage, noticed Hunter clearly in the crowd, remembering, that “I saw what he was looking at, that he was crazy, he was on drugs, and that he had murderous intent. There was no doubt in my mind that he intended to do terrible harm to Mick or somebody in the Rolling Stones, or somebody on that stage.”
At this point, footage from the documentary shows Hunter (seen in the film in a lime-green suit) drawing a long-barreled black revolver from his jacket and pointing it in the air. The film clearly shows a bright orange flash at the end of the pistol in one frame. Porter Bibb says it is impossible to determine whether the flash is a gunshot, a reflection, or something else. The film then shows Hells Angel Alan Passaro, armed with a knife, running at Hunter from the side, parrying the gun with his left hand and stabbing him with his right. The footage was shot by Eric Saarinen who was on stage taking pictures of the crowd. Saarinen was unaware of having caught the incident on film. This was discovered more than a week later when rushes were screened in the New York offices of the Maysles Brothers.
In the film sequence, lasting about two seconds, a six-foot opening in the crowd appears, leaving Patty Bredahoff in the center. Hunter enters the opening from the left, his hand rises and the silhouette of a revolver is clearly seen against Bredahoff’s bright crocheted dress. Passaro is seen entering from the right and delivering two stabs as he pushes Hunter off screen. The opening closes around Bredahoff. Passaro is reported to have stabbed Hunter five times in the upper back. Witnesses also reported Hunter was stomped on by several Hells Angels while he was on the ground. The gun was recovered and turned over to police. Hunter’s autopsy later confirmed his girlfriend’s report that he did have methamphetamine in his bloodstream at the time of his death.

Hell’s Angels beat a different concert attendee with pool cues. This was earlier in the day at the Altamont Free Concert. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
The video. You can see Hunter enter from the left during the first few minutes:
Further Reading:
Darcymarie 4:25 pm on April 6, 2013 Permalink |
I believe a young George Lucas was involved in filming this concert incident: source david mcgowan
John 7:46 am on April 7, 2013 Permalink |
Was he really? I would not doubt it.
vistacruiser67 1:09 pm on September 4, 2013 Permalink |
The photo above with the pool ques. This was earlier in the day and did not involve Meredith Hunter. The Angels were beating other people with those pool ques. It was still daylight and one of the opening acts were playing around this time. The film has led us to believe it was during the Jefferson Airplane set. The film go though it is has many events jumbled out of context. The nude woman in the crowd is potrayed during Sympathy for the Devil yet the complete audio has this happening at the beginning of the song Gimme Shelter which is not included in the film except as a closing track with other scenes overlayed. Also the killing of Meredith Hunter takes place at the beginning of Under My Thumb instead at the end as the film portrays.
John W 5:01 pm on September 4, 2013 Permalink |
Thanks for the info. I will fix that caption.
vistacruiser67 1:34 pm on September 4, 2013 Permalink |
Also regarding the phantom gunshot. Sonny Barger has written that one of the Angels were grazed by a gunshot from the gun. He stated that the Angel was a fugitive and could not be taken for medical care and it was just a flesh wound. As a footnote, Alan Passaro was found dead in 1985 wearing a suit floating in the Anderson Reservoir with $10k in his pockets. I’ve read different version more recently that the money was strapped to his back in something like a backpack. Also his black Mercedes was found with the keys in the ignition at the site a few days before his body was discovered. Also someone had concluded that before all this he showered and left his home quickly because there was a wet towel on his bathroom floor. I don’t know how people arrive as such conclusions. Search youtube for Sam Green Lot 63 grave C for Hunter’s Grave that was unmarked until post 2006 where volunteers took a collection due to the Sam Green film. Meredith’s mother sued the Stones for $500k and settled for $10k. Meredith has at least two other siblings that are dead but has a surviving sister named Dixie. I think his mother was still alive as late as 2005.
vistacruiser67 1:48 pm on September 4, 2013 Permalink |
Meredith Hunter was also rumored to be a member of the gang known as the East Bay Executioners. The Stones have long been blamed for the Hells Angels being hired and several conflicting stories but one of the most consistent is that the Hells Angels were chosen at the behest of the Grateful Dead. Keith Richards stated this shortly after the concert. Also the persistent thought that if they were not acting as bodyguards they may had shown up anyway and caused a greater disturbance. Sam Cutler is the English speaking guy in the film with the leather jacket. He has recently written a book YOU CANT ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT. He states idea for the Hells Angels came from the Grateful Dead and based on this Sam went to visit the Angels a few weeks before to arrange for them to keep people off the stage. This story is corroborated by Pete Knell of the Frisco Chapter of the Angels on the post radio Altamont show which is a extra feature on the DVD. Also some blame the Grateful Dead for cancelling their part of the show before the Stones leaving a huge time gap before the Stone came on. This gap is seen as causing greater tension and frustration in the crowd.
Henriette 1:25 pm on March 26, 2014 Permalink |
oh wow… M´s life ended in for this time typically´s “meth and/or acid brutally abusing/rock´n´rolled/killed in his boots while being on the road/death by killed with an rude instrument of murdering, eg: knife, stone, big wood, shot gun, etc.”American way of die young=lived an extremely kind of living fast before. 1969 the love and peace inspiration was almost gone since the end of 1967 I´d say. The underground youth-scene escalated in a bad suicidal way. Am I rite? a very, very extreme era… – it always also catches me, when I feel imaging myself to this era. I was born 1973 in the USA-belonged Western Europe…