Gunfire at Folk Life

This weekend is one of Seattle's two major music festivals of the summer. Northwest Folklife is often considered the hippie-er, more liberal of the two. It's also perpetually broke.

It's all about that whole peace, love and understanding thing, with heaping handfuls of "community," "empowerment," "diversity," and "second hand marijuana smoke" thrown in for good measure.

Not that there's anything wrong with those things. But like most good things, too much of it eventually becomes a humorless parody of itself.

The event is still a lot of fun though. I haven't made it there yet this year, but I may try over the next couple of days.

Apparently, this year's love-fest was interrupted by a fight that resulted in gunfire near a drum circle.

There are details of the incident in the PI. But this is my favorite part of the article.

Four people saw the suspected gunman running through the crowd, jumped him and held him until police arrived at what was by then a chaotic scene of screaming, fleeing people.

A band playing nearby, which had stopped when the gunfire erupted, picked up the music again, hoping to calm the crowd.

Seattle firefighters arrived to treat the wounded and officers handcuffed the suspected gunman, marching him through the throng of people. His face bloodied, the man was taunted by many in the crowd, some of them throwing trash at him.

One man got into the suspect's face, screaming, "This is a peaceful event!"

...More

I expect there will be some sort of "healing" ceremony added to the agenda before the end of the event.