GEORGE, Wash. - A night full of music and memories turned deadly at the Gorge Amphitheatre over the weekend, as one gunman opened fire leaving two people dead, two injured, and thousands shaken.
“You can say peace, love, unity, and respect all you want, but when somebody is coming at you with a gun, how do you recover from that?”
Jayson Warren, who has been going to music festivals for nearly ten years, knows the common rave culture phrase, PLUR, well. It is a set of principles originating from the 1990s that those who attend music festivals, particularly raves and EDM concerts, follow.
Yet, when a mass shooting unfolded Saturday night at the Gorge during the Beyond Wonderland festival, those principles seemed to fly out the door.
Warren, his fiancé, and her friend were headed to their campsite, about a mile away from the festival’s venue, to change clothes around eight p.m. Saturday because they were cold. Little did they know, within that time – the night would take a deadly turn.
“Something as simple as changing my clothes could have cost me my life,” Warren said.
As the music continued to boom, one key sound stuck out to Warren as he and his friends were at the campgrounds; gunshots, then screams.
“We heard somebody scream; it was absolutely one of the worst kinds of sounds you could ever hear in your life,” Warren said. “He has a gun, get away from him, stay away, hide, run away, don’t go near him.”
Those words of panic echoed across the campsite, Warren and his friends took cover inside their tent; there was an active shooter, and they did not know where the bullets were flying.
Warren attributes his survival to a security guard on scene, calling her a hero.
"She was kind of our scout for when and where to run when we needed to, and I thank her from the very bottom of my heart for my life, for my finance's life, for our friend's life, and for everybody else she saved and evacuated from that location,” Warren said.
Warren said he was in complete fight or flight mode.
“There really weren’t any thoughts, I just knew there was a shooter where we were, and I needed to get away,” he said.
Authorities say if you cannot run, then you need to hide in an active shooter situation. In the worst-case scenario, if you come face-to-face with the shooter, you need to fight. Luckily, Warren was able to flee the scene; staff members scattered across the campground and hollered directions to those running away, as well.
Warren said because of the loud music and fireworks, thousands of people at the festival had no idea there was a shooter.
"Eventually none of the staff even knew why I was running,” he said. “They weren’t informed on what was actually happening.”
Warren is home safe on the west side of the state and is now left wondering what this weekend could have looked like had security been more thorough outside the campgrounds at the Gorge.
A petition is circling online, titled “Require Venues to Have Metal Detectors.” The person who started this petition says that camping festivals very often have lax security, adding that "but now people have died and there needs to be a change." The goal is to have 500 signatures, and Warren said he plans to support this petition.
As of Monday evening, there is still no word on who the shooting suspect is or the victims. Due to the holiday, all courthouses are closed, leaving only voicemails behind. NonStop Local KHQ has multiple calls and messages into authorities handling this investigation, specifically the Wenatchee Police Department, to confirm more information, but we have yet to hear back.
We will keep you updated.
