Although the Summer season of 2023 has been flush with nice musical occasions, from jam band farewells to EDM gatherings, there has additionally been the unlucky actuality of drug-related police exercise leading to quite a few arrests and huge quantities of occasion favors confiscated.
A lot of this text will probably be centered round one explicit locale the place a few of the drug busts—together with one tragic mass capturing—came about: the idyllic Gorge Amphitheatre in Grant County, Washington, a legendary venue located on the banks of the Columbia River within the jap a part of the state.
The Gorge was the location of the latest music occasion spoiled by drug arrests: the Bass Canyon Music Pageant, a celebration of EDM (digital dance music), which came about over the weekend of August 18-20. The Grant Co Sheriff’s Division arrested 13 people whereas confiscating $20,000 value of goodies, together with cocaine, LSD and ketamine, together with hashish. Although weed has been authorized in Washington for over a decade, it’s nonetheless towards the regulation to promote it with out a license.
The Grant Co Sheriff’s Dept. carried out 14 totally different investigations in complete, their heightened response prompted by an earlier capturing on the identical live performance grounds in June—extra on that story to comply with.
Of their official assertion to the media, the Sheriff’s Dept. gave the impression to be rationalizing their overzealous operation, by stating that the live performance grounds can maintain as much as 25,000 folks, the identical inhabitants as close by small cities. But, fashionable music festivals have at all times been about these types of cramped situations, and the overwhelming majority go off easily with none overbearing police presence being mandatory.
Comparable drug raids have been additionally carried out on the East Coast, together with on the Elements Festival in Lengthy Pond, located in Pennsylvania’s Monroe County. A self-described “automobile tenting” digital music competition that occurred over the weekend of August 11-14, 11 folks in all have been arrested, charged with promoting varied substances to competition attendees.
In accordance with studies, the elevated police scrutiny this yr was prompted by overdoses on the Components Fest the earlier yr, in 2022. But as soon as once more, the Sheriff’s Dept’s claims increase the problem that the precedence ought to be guaranteeing persons are supplied correct medical providers, together with taking protected substances within the first place. As a result of irrespective of how large or small of a regulation enforcement presence there really is, persons are going to take medication at festivals and live shows, as a result of a lot of the sellers don’t get caught.
It was an actual shooting—not solely overdoses—on the Past Wonderland EDM Pageant held on the Gorge on Saturday, June 17 that made nationwide headlines. Two folks have been horrifically shot to loss of life, with two others wounded—together with the gunman’s personal girlfriend, inflicting everlasting accidents to her. The competition’s Sunday schedule was promptly canceled in wake of the mass capturing.
It’s value noting that the 2 homicide victims have been a same-sex feminine couple engaged to be married; they have been strolling collectively when Kelly shot them to loss of life. A male who tried to assist the victims, in addition to the suspect’s aforementioned girlfriend, have been wounded by gunfire. The accused gunman, 26-year previous James Kelly, who was captured on the competition grounds, is an active-duty soldier stationed in Washington state. It has but to be revealed whether or not or not the shootings have been politically motivated. Kelly has claimed it was a nasty “mushroom journey” that prompted him to shoot down his fellow concertgoers, which the company media have been fast to use of their protection of the capturing. As instructed to police, throughout one of many live performance performances, a tripping Kelly was stuffed with ideas of the world coming to an finish, and so he rushed again to his tent, the place his gun was ready to be fired indiscriminately.
The Wonderland incident offered all of the justification required for an intricately coordinated multi-agency operation to conduct over-the-top drug exercise throughout the common jam band Lifeless and Firm’s farewell tour cease to the Gorge on July 7 and eight.
Mutually concerned within the Lifeless & Co. busts have been the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Group (INET), Grant County Sheriff’s Workplace, Moses Lake Police Division Road Crimes Unit, in addition to Homeland Safety Investigations, which means the US authorities was concerned as properly.
Varied substances with a mixed estimated avenue worth of over $200,000 were seized, together with over 28,000 grams of weed, dabs and edibles, in addition to coke, shrooms, molly and acid. In all, 13 folks have been arrested on drug felony prices.
Posting on their Facebook web page July 12, the Grant County Sheriff’s Workplace issued an official assertion relating to the bust, making no apologies for the arrests and seizures:
“The Gorge Amphitheater encourages regulation enforcement pro-activity at their live shows that are identified to have an unlawful drug tradition based mostly on the variety of overdoses and incidents skilled over time.” The assertion additionally referenced the current EDM competition capturing.
Nevertheless, the Sheriff’s Dept failed to handle the first downside of the Wonderland incident, which wasn’t the mushrooms, however the firearm that was illegally introduced onto the live performance grounds, which as acknowledged within the venue’s official guidelines, is prohibited. Whereas it’s true that psychedelic mushrooms have been prohibited too, that substance can’t be used as a weapon to impulsively kill harmless folks. Legislation enforcement didn’t present an announcement relating to an obvious plan in place to forestall future gun violence on the Gorge, solely specializing in the medication.
The arrests and seizures on the Gorge weren’t the primary time throughout the two-month Lifeless & Co. summer time tour that large busts at one among their gigs made the information. When the band carried out on the Saratoga Performing Arts Middle (aka SPAC), positioned in upstate New York, on June 17 and 18, native regulation enforcement was in full pressure. So full in actual fact, that the New York State Park Police reported these two D&C exhibits have been among the many busiest they’ve ever skilled when it comes to drug busts, in addition to some precise, violent crime they needed to take care of on the venue. The Park Police seized LSD, cocaine, mushrooms, ketamine, meth, weighing tools and even black-market “packaging”. Moreover, 54 tanks of nitrous oxide have been seized, together with arresting over 30 people, in addition to confiscating $33,000 in chilly arduous money from one luckless drug seller.
Live shows by Phish, the largest jam band outdoors of Lifeless & Co., additionally skilled undesirable—and maybe unwarranted—remedy by regulation enforcement. As reported by Phish followers on Reddit, accompanied by photographs that offered visible affirmation of the declare, a circulating memo revealed {that a} federal/native regulation enforcement joint endeavor was concentrating on a pair of Phish exhibits to be held in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania in late July.
In a memo shared far and vast on the net, the doc carried the heading of “Washington County Sheriff’s Workplace” with an added observe “Inside Dissemination Solely.” The topic learn: “Joint County Activity Enforcement Operation ‘Phish in a Barrel’” with the following line indicating the operation was to be carried out at “Star Lake Amphitheatre July 21-22, 2023”, a live performance venue outdoors of Pittsburgh.
The memo listed the “chain of command” of the varied companies presupposed to be concerned with this operation in hierarchical order, designated by phonetics: “Ops Alpha” was Dept. of Homeland Safety, “Ops Bravo” was Washington Co Sheriff’s and “Ops Charlie” was the infamous Drug Enforcement Administration, simply to throw an additional scare into any who believed this printed chicanery.
The memo designated Freeway 22 because the “major checkpoint”, with Freeway 18 because the “secondary” checkpoint wherein anti-drug items with colourful nicknames like “Group Wolverine” and “Group Badger” would crack down on any would-be partying Phish followers. Maybe utilizing a code identify based mostly on an precise animal-based Phish track resembling “Ocelot” or “Possum” may’ve been too apparent.
Regardless of the memo seeming fairly deliberately comical in hindsight, this doc was strongly believed by the Phish and wider jam band communities for a time frame main as much as these live shows.
A lot in order that Washington Co Sheriff Tony Andronas felt obligated to put up on his Fb web page that “Phish in a Barrel” was indeed a hoax, and in reality, an identical prank had been performed on the Virginia State Police in 2018. In that case, as with this most up-to-date one, not one of the perpetrators have been recognized.
Regardless of the hoax, it seems the Washington County Sheriff’s Division nonetheless made their presence felt in essentially the most unwelcome method at these Phish exhibits, as officers have been really on the Star Lake “garden” (the final admission space behind the seats), as visually documented on social media. This time it was no hoax/prank, as photographs posted on Reddit revealed the cops have been disturbing and disrupting concertgoers’ good instances, writing tickets for these merely smoking weed on the garden.
With paranoia over the “Phish in a Barrel” hoax being so widespread, along with the entire extreme precise busts from coast-to-coast, this demonstrates that regulation enforcement continues to prioritize drug enforcement over public security at festivals and live shows—so let the attendee beware.