Arrest #1 September 28, 1963 – Tallahassee, Florida

"On Sept. 28, 1963, Jim had been charged with Disturbing the Peace and petit larceny of a police riot helmet and umbrella from a police car. As one would imagine, a student wearing a trench coat and police riot helmet carrying an umbrella tends to stand out. This resulted in Captain Kenneth Causseaux taking him into custody." USA Today

It started, as a lot of junior college escapades do, without any anticipation or intention that anything was going to happen, just a good time. However, it turned out to be an adventure worth telling your children about. Morrison and some friends were on their way to a Saturday afternoon football game with the seasons changing. It was a cool fall afternoon, a little bit of rain in the air. Morrison and his friends got drunk on wine, and on the way to the game Jim engaged one of his friends in a mock sword fight with the umbrellas they were carrying. Morrison saw a cop’s helmet sitting in an unattended patrol car and took it which not unsurprisingly drew the attention of the police. Morrison was arrested, put in handcuffs and in the ensuing confusion caused by his friends trying to intercede, he attempted an escape. He was re-apprehended and charged with petty larceny, public drunkenness, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest.Cherry, Jim. The Doors Examined 

Arrest #2 December 9, 1967 – New Haven, Connecticut

Jim was “chatting up a fan” in a side room and a cop came in and thought they were supposed to be in the audience. In his subtle Mr. Hyde manner Jim had told the cop to fuck off. The policeman reacted by spraying Jim in the eyes. When Morrison came onstage, I could sense that something confrontational was going to happen. His eyes were red and he looked mad.

In the middle of “Back Door Man,” Jim told the story of the backstage incident and started taunting the police who were standing directly in front of the stage, supposedly protecting us from the audience. The cops started turning around, frowning at Jim. Jim continued baiting the crowd like I never heard before—daring anyone to do something. 

Two or three policemen came onstage from the sides and behind the back curtain. My heart started double-timing. Jim stuck the microphone under the nose of one of the officers and said, “Say your thing, man!” They started to drag Jim off, and I left the stage via the back curtain. The mood in the auditorium was getting hysterical, ugly, even violent. Standing in the wings, I thought that this is what war must feel like. I felt real panic in the air. Densmore, John. Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors

This was the first time in recorded history that a musical artist was arrested onstage in the middle of a set. Can’t blame us for freezing up without any idea what to do. Bill called our managers, our managers called our lawyer, our lawyer called the cops, and Jim was released on bail, which Bill paid out of our earnings for the night. None of this was Jim’s fault, so for once none of his trademark apologies were necessary.Krieger, Robby. Set the Night on Fire

Full article in Life magazine of the incident.

Arrest #3 January 29, 1968 – Las Vegas Nevada

'What happened next I can only attribute to the fact that we were a racially mixed group with two "hippies" and it was this mix that drove a Pussycat security guard bonkers. Affable Mike was the first to encounter the pride and prejudice of the guard, who suddenly bashed him on the head with his billy club. From the parking lot I saw Mike go down and heard him yell something like "Hey, what the hell is this?"

Then the guard came at Jim, who leaned against a wall and continued to placidly act out his joint smoking. The guard smacked Jim's head again...and again...and again. Jim acted as if the guard wasn't there, even when blood began streaming down. Chaney rushed into the scene yelling "This is an outrage, call the police!" Why the guard never hit Chaney, who is black, I'll never know-unless it is because Chaney is an ex-football star, and looks it.

By this time the Pussycat entrance is in a huge uproar, with more security guards arriving, people screaming, Mike in an Irish fury and Jim Morrison placidly bleeding, ladies nearly hysterical, Chaney yelling "Call the Police" and me yelling "Let's get out of here!" The reason I was in favor of retreat was that I knew from experience that Jim attracted cops like honey attracts bears. His charisma was such that your ordinary upholder of the established order could be infuriated merely by the sight of Morrison strolling down the street-innocent to all outward appearances, but...well, there was that invisible something about him that silently suggested revolution, disorder, chaos.

That night the Vegas cops arrived pronto. It didn't surprise me when they took one look at this noise, grabbed Morrison and bent him over the hood of their patrol car. It did, however, cause me considerable fright when they grabbed me as the other "criminal" involved, because I had a real joint in my pocket, and that could get you a long stay in a Nevada prison.

But our guardian angels were on the job. Chaney's loud indignation distracted the police long enough for me to slip away to the shadows, drop the joint and resume the position of the friskee a wink before the cops were ready to search me.

After the frisk, the cops cuffed our hands behind our backs, just Morrison and me, and shoved us into the patrol car. I was shaken due to the close call, Jim was bleeding, but worse, his demons were bubbling up. Soon they were rushing out of his mouth like a pack of mad dogs attacking helpless strangers in the forest. "You chickenshit pigs, you redneck stupid bastards." etc and so forth. I made an effort to stem this tide of demons, and Jim did try, but it was hopeless, for the demons had him now and were coming through in a hurricane of invectives.

It wasn't just our momentary plight that had aroused these invisible avenging angel/demons-it was also the temper of the times, the war in Vietnam, the plight of millions all over the planet who are unjustly harmed by such uniformed nitwits as these. Morrison thought and felt in planetary terms, and his mind had an uncanny way of reaching way back in time as if he were the reincarnation of a pagan priest who had been burned at the stake during the inquisition and was here to avenge that wrong, among others. When manhandled by the emperor's troops, it seemed he would rather be killed than humbled. In the heart and soul of Jim Morrison there was an uncontrollable rage against injustice.

At the police station, we were roughly escorted to a large office space full of people at desks, tapping typewriters, reading reports, sipping coffee, and performing other such police duties. Our 'hippie length' hair was not yet the fashion in Vegas, and our arresting officers had had more than they could take of Morrison's "disrespect for the law." So they made us strip naked in front of all those officers, men and women, with the clear intention of humiliating us. "Let's see if they're boys or girls, har har har."

But Jim at age 24 was Mr. Body Beautiful, and I'd been pumping iron and running, so neither of us felt much humiliation. Until, that is, they brought forth a spray gun and engulfed us in big clouds of roach powder, then made us turn around, bend over, spread our cheeks and gave us a final blast in the ass. That brought laughter from the assembled peace officers, but was by no means the medicine needed to quiet Jim's obsessing demons.

By the time we'd been booked, fingerprinted, photographed and thrown into the holding tank, James Douglas Morrison was no longer present. His eyes were out of focus and he was panting like a fire breathing dragon. That's when he climbed the bars of our extra high cell and drew my attention to the assembled minions of law and order by yelling "Hey, Bob, ain't they the ugliest motherfuckers you ever saw?" and other such endearments, delivered in that resonant voice and clear diction which was fast becoming his trademark as a singer.

There was no point trying to remind him that the police have the extra-legal power to kill you, or worse, to beat you into a brain damaged basketcase. Whatever force had gained control of him cared not one bit for the safety of his physical being or mine. Presently our arresting officers returned to tell us that they got off work at midnight and that we would then "have a date, somewhere real private." This only caused the ranting and raving coming out of Morrison's mouth to become more eloquent and precisely phrased. Even from behind those bars he was determined to make a dream-haunting entrance into the consciousness of all within hearing.

I laid down on one of the steel bunks and concentrated on Bev and the others putting their wits together and getting us out of there before midnight. While Jim preached from his perch up the bars, I watched the secondhand sweep around the dial, the minutes go by and soon enough we had only five to go.

Yes, they got us out just in the nick of time over Jim's protests that he wanted to call his lawyer in L.A., and file charges for false arrest. We'd been charged with public drunkenness, but walked out of that jail as sober as when we went in."

From Tony Gover's "A Hell Of A Way To Peddle Poems"

Arrest #4 March 1, 1969 – Miami, Florida

Yes Jim was drunker than usual, and yes Jim screamed and swore and derailed the songs to go on long, rambling tangents, and yes Jim encouraged the crowd, as he always did, to come up onstage, and yes our friend Lewis Beach Marvin III from the Moon Fire Temple was there for some reason and handed Jim an actual baby lamb while he was onstage to promote animal rights, and yes Jim joked about exposing himself, and yes our equipment manager, Vince Treanor, had to grab Jim’s pants to prevent him from pulling them down, and yes Jim was at some point hurled into the audience, and yes the audience stormed the stage, and yes John and I had to jump ship when part of the stage collapsed, and yes the PA speakers toppled after that, preventing any possibility of an encore.

But to me it seemed like just another crazy Doors show. The Miami Incident in March of 1969 would later become the most infamous episode in Doors history. But after we left the stage we shared beers with the local cops in our dressing room. There was no moral outrage. There was no scandal. There was no discussion about Jim exposing himself because it just plain didn’t happen. No one got hurt. There weren’t even any chairs to destroy because the promoters had pulled them all out to sell more tickets. The cops laughed with us about how wild the whole night had been, and when it was time for us to go they wished us well.

....we got a call from Bill Siddons to tell us our concert in Miami had created a firestorm of controversy. Headlines. Criminal charges. Fifteen tour dates had been canceled and our songs had been pulled from the radio.Krieger, Robby. Set the Night on Fire 

#5 November 9, 1969 – Phoenix, Arizona

In 1969, for some reason people started hijacking planes to Cuba several times a month. New laws were passed, and airline personnel were on edge. Toward the end of the year, while awaiting trial for the Miami Incident, Jim and his friend Tom Baker caused another incident, this time on a flight from L.A. to Phoenix.

They were on their way to see the Rolling Stones play, but they got drunk on the plane and harassed the cabin crew. The airline might have brushed it off in the past, but because of all the new anti-hijacking legislation, Jim and Tom were taken into custody when they landed. There was bail and fines and Max Fink had to go to Phoenix and deal with all of it. The trial and legal mess would play out over the following seven months, running parallel to the trial and legal mess in Miami.