Two people were killed and three others were wounded, police said, after police said the gunman began shooting “indiscriminately” into a crowd of people at a Washington state camp hosting people attending a nearby music festival on Saturday night.
Authorities received the first report of the shooting shortly before 8:30 p.m. at a campground a few hundred yards from the Gorge Amphitheater, where thousands were attending an electronic dance music festival, said Kyle Foreman, Grant County public information officer. . Sheriff’s office. The gorge is located near the small town of George, about 150 miles (239 kilometers) east of Seattle.
After the initial shooting, Foreman said, the suspect began moving around the camp and “continued shooting indiscriminately into the crowd” until police finally confronted him and arrested him.
Foreman said the suspect was killed during a confrontation with police. The suspect was hospitalized for his injuries, but no further details were immediately released.
An alert informed the public that there was an active shooter in the area and to “run, hide or fight,” but Foreman said there was no effort to clean up the festival. Foreman said the festival continued after the shooting and did not end until early Sunday morning.
“He was, again, on the edge of the property. Law enforcement was watching him and they were able to keep him in that area. He wasn’t moving,” Foreman said.
Alvarez told The Seattle Times that Yazmin Alvarez, 30, was with her husband and a boyfriend at a campsite near the road when a woman ran in and told them there was an active shooter.
Alvarez’s group ran towards the exit, finding shelter next to buildings close to the road, along with dozens of others. They saw the lights of the helicopters while the festival was taking place nearby.
“It was uncomfortable because we also hear people having a good time to our left,” Alvarez said. The group returns to camp to collect their IDs and jackets, but they leave their camping gear behind.
Foreman said details of the casualties would be released at a later date.
Organizers of the Beyond Wonderland electronic music festival said on social media that Sunday’s events at the Gorge have been cancelled.
Concert organizers described the shooting location as a “hardcore campground,” and it’s likely that most of the people who stayed there were at the concert during the shoot, Foreman said.
An independent monitoring group, the North Central Washington Special Investigations Unit, is investigating the shooting.
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