Investigations
NGIC labeled Juggalos a hybrid gang in 2011
Fans at the 25th Gathering told Andrew Callaghan that federal paperwork still shadowed hatchet tattoos and car stickers.
Thousands of Insane Clown Posse fans converged for the 25th Gathering of the Juggalos, a four-day campground festival of wrestling, stunt pits, and a closing Faygo soak that drenched the main stage. Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan filmed the prior year's event for an All Gas No Breaks episode the channel posted in September 2026.
Joseph Utsler, who performs as Shaggy 2 Dope, told the crew the festival outgrew convention halls after Psychopathic Records kept getting kicked out of rented halls. Insane Clown Posse has sold more than 7 million records without mainstream radio play, and the gathering now draws a mix of longtime clowns, younger artists such as Ouija Macc, and a visible crowd of camera operators.
Attendees described a self-policed campground where strangers hugged newcomers and shared nitrous balloons from merch tents. A stunt collective called Pits of Regret fired paintballs at bare skin and ran a barbed-wire trampoline that left deep cuts. One member said he broke his spine a month earlier when he jumped into a car windshield during a show, left the hospital against medical advice, and came straight to the gathering in a wheelchair.
Several fans said outsiders still treated the family as a gang. One man said the FBI feared any culture that could move crowds the way the Detroit clowns had. Others pointed to school bans on Psychopathic merch, military discharges over hatchet tattoos, and traffic stops triggered by hatchet man stickers on cars.
The tape tied those complaints to a 2011 Justice Department gang intelligence report that listed Juggalos alongside national street gangs. In February 2009, two men who called themselves Juggalos were arrested after 21-year-old Michael Goucher was found in the woods with more than 20 stab wounds. Juggalos also marched on Washington to protest the label before Insane Clown Posse and four fans sued the Department of Justice and the FBI.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of that suit in 2017, finding the National Gang Intelligence Center report was not a final agency action reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act. Judge Alice M. Batchelder wrote that law enforcement was not required to treat the assessment as binding. Later reports dropped the Juggalo section, and Insane Clown Posse said it spent heavily on the fight.
On the final night, fans rushed the stage after the headline set for Faygo Armageddon, spraying soda until security lost track of camera gear. A first-time attendee walked off soaked and painted, saying the crowd felt like the last place in America with no corporate sponsor on the fence.
Source video: Gathering of the Juggalos