Here’s a new one…cops in Billings Montana are blaming MMA for random yay-hoos getting together in the park and fighting each other:

Mixed martial arts is everywhere. Spend a few minutes channel surfing and there’s a good chance you’ll come across a mixed martial arts, commonly called MMA, match.

If you attended Thursday Night Fights at the Babcock Theater throughout the 2007-2008 season, you may have seen one in downtown Billings. And facilities that teach MMA have been popping up around town.

But if you were near either Poly Vista or Pioneer Park a few weeks ago, you may have seen an unsanctioned, unofficial match.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on April 11, Billings Police officers responded to reports of a large fight involving more than 100 people in the baseball field at Arrowhead Elementary near Poly Vista Park. When officers arrived, the group scattered.

I’m not going to validate this sheer stupidity by commenting much on it….this might be the nadir of the hysterical anti-MMA scare articles. I live in Portland, OR home of Team Quest and a whole slew of professional MMA fighters including arguably the best middleweight in the world Matt “The Law” Lindland. You can go so far as to consider Portland a hotbed of MMA. Were MMA responsible for random street and park fights the Rose City would be awash with brawls. Since we’ve got more parks within city limits than anywhere else in the US there would be so many areas for brawls to break out as to justify the intervention of the National Guard. Occasionally random fights *do* break out here in Portland, but the local cops and media are smart enough to blame more relevant factors like booze, boredom, drugs, stupidity, etc, and not try to place blame on an increasingly popular sport.

This is an example of trend journalism in its lowest form. It’s also an example of a new phenomenon in law enforcement, which basically tries to outsource blame for problems within a community to a societal trend beyond the control of the relevant agencies. It’s a symbiotic relationship–law enforcement blames external source, media hysterically reports this as fact and this process continues until a new scapegoat is found.

The good news is that at some point MMA will no longer be the scapegoat au currant and hapless Barney Fifes and hysterial fear mongers in the local media will move on to some other illusory “crisis”. In my somewhat educated opinion this is already happening, but things like this take a while to filter down to backwashes like Billings. Based on this example of utter stupidity masquerading as “journalism” is it any wonder that print newspapers are dying a slow, tortuous death?

Police see risks with recent fights in city parks @ Billings Gazette.com