They say history is a good teacher, and those who forget it, are doomed to repeat it.
Last Saturday’s Chronicle had the story under the headline “County Crashes Party” and detailed the innocent rave party planned for somewhere near Rainbow Falls State Park. In it, organizer John Creighton, described his event called “Epic III” like a fairly large wedding, 300-400 friends, and themed it as an “enchanted forest.”
Just sounds so peaceful … even serene.
My first thought was of a wedding reception I attended many years ago near Toledo, where the large crowd parked all over, under the influence, and got way out of control. In fact so much so we had to call for help from surrounding counties.
But it isn’t really fair to compare a wedding to a rave. Most weddings and the receptions are pretty calm, and yes, even serene.
But it would be fair to compare it to the only other sanctioned rave I know of in the county: Freak Night, October 2000.
It too was billed by the organizers as a big electric light show with vendors and sponsors the likes we’d never seen. Oh, they said it would be so great, and an economic boost to the county! Just listening to the organizer made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
We wouldn’t need to worry about a thing. They’d provide all the security, control access, check IDs into the big gala event, do all the searches, and just take care of everything.
All the fairgrounds had to do was count the cash.
Perfect venue they said. Right in between Portland and Seattle, with lots of parking, lots of buildings to set up different shows in. Can’t you just picture it?
Kind of reminded me of a snake oil salesman.
We called around and found that raves were popular in some more urban areas, and the law enforcement agencies we spoke to really hadn’t had much trouble. What we didn’t ask was if they’d been to an outdoor one? Turned out, they hadn’t and didn’t really see what went on inside.
They came from as far away as California and descended on our little community with drugs we’d really not seen much of, and knew little about. Sadly though, we became experts overnight.
Despite the pat downs for drugs, weapons, etc., with a controlled entry point, the drug called “E” or ecstasy was everywhere. But it was something we had little experience with and much of the night it was right in front of us, and we didn’t realize it.
There were reportedly 11,000 people who showed up for Freak Night, and for a while all went well. So well the fair director tried to convince me to send the near 50 officers home; it was costing money. They weren’t needed and private security could handle it.
But that really wasn’t the case as the night went on.
The newspaper reported 93 noise complaints in an area used to having events, some of which are pretty noisy. There were only a few arrests and one of them for assaulting me. As I said there were 50-plus cops of all stripes on the grounds, and he chose me to sucker punch?
There were a number of sick kids treated as a result of the drugs they ingested; I don’t recall if we ever counted how many went to the hospital on their own. But seemed like much of the night was spent getting them to the medics on site.
Creighton’s intentions may be good, but the facts are events like this involve drugs and once people use them, bad things can happen. I can’t imagine a venue in rural Lewis County where this would be a good idea. I don’t think they are a good idea anywhere, but the location can certainly make it worse.
We don’t need another Freak Night, and I for one am glad the county shut it down.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
