A mass shooting at Beyond Wonderland, an electronic music festival at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, WA, left at least two dead and three injured on Saturday night, according to local police.
Kyle Foreman, a public information officer with the Grant County Sheriff, announced in a news conference that officers responded to a call at 8:23 p.m. local time (11:23 p.m. ET) “to reports of shots fired into the crowd.” Upon arriving they discovered the suspect had fired a weapon “randomly into the crowd” at a campground near the popular live music venue, which hosted the Joni Mitchell‘s Joni Jam just last week.
“The shooter then walked away from where the incident happened,” he said, adding that “he continued to randomly shoot into the crowd” after law enforcement moved into the area. “The suspect was eventually taken into custody.”
“We don’t know what the motives were or what the intentions were of the shooter and we’ll have to wait and see if we can find that information out later on,” Foreman said. He did not provide any details about the victims and said he did not know what type of weapons were used.
Beyond Wonderland festival organizers posted a tweet following the shooting asking concertgoers to avoid the area of the campground where police were investigating and assuring them there was no active danger. Meanwhile, a public alert advised people that there was an active shooter in the area and to “run, hide or fight,” but Foreman said there was no effort to evacuate the festival, which continued until early Sunday morning. Organizers shared a statement on Sunday canceling the second day of the festival. Read the festival’s statement below.
— Beyond Wonderland at The Gorge (@BeyondWlandPNW) June 18, 2023