For bringing in several thousand people to an event that sold $5,000 worth of beer a day, crime at Country Explosion was more of a fizzle than a bang.
Lt. Ron Johnson of the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office said while fights and intoxication were not uncommon among concert-goers, serious problems were at a minimum.
“It wasn’t bad,” he said. “We were very happy with the way the majority of the crowd got together, and it seems like, according to standards, it was a pretty peaceful event. You’re always going to have that 10 percent of the population [getting into trouble] at an event.”
Wednesday night, a 50-year-old woman staying in a camper at Deseret Peak in advance of Country Explosion died, possibly of a pre-existing medical condition, Johnson said, though the exact cause of death has not yet been determined.
On Thursday, officers broke up a couple of fights and investigated reports that a handgun had been fired into the ground to break up another fight, Johnson said. A female passenger in a car leaving Deseret Peak jumped out of the vehicle and hit her head, and had to be taken by medical helicopter to a Salt Lake hospital, he said.
“We’re not sure why she did that, and we haven’t verified yet from the Utah Highway Patrol if alcohol was involved,” he said.
Another person leaving the festival that night crashed on a stolen motorcycle near a Utah Highway Patrol trooper assigned to help monitor traffic, he said.
Friday night’s concert was fairly uneventful, he said, with only a few verbal altercations being reported.
On Saturday, however, officers responded to several assaults, all involving women fighting each other, Johnson said. Several people were escorted from the venue because of the fights, he said. In addition, one driver was cited for driving under the influence, and one person was arrested for public intoxication, he said.
During Sunday’s concert, some concert-goers who had paid for VIP tickets complained that people with general admission tickets were encroaching on their privileged viewing area, he said, and two people were arrested after a domestic assault that occurred in the parking lot.
In addition, Johnson said, officers occasionally had to remind some attendees to use proper bathroom facilities to answer Nature’s call, and ask others engaging in amorous behavior in public to take their activities to the privacy of their camper trailers.
Tooele County Sheriff Frank Park said between the security force hired by Country Explosion, the law enforcement officers from across the county who patrolled the area, and the relative law-abiding nature of the crowd, the event stayed fairly uneventful. There were relatively few DUIs because so many of the attendees were sleeping on the premises, he said, and by and large, officers were able to resolve problems by peacefully breaking up arguments or leading intoxicated people back to their trailers
“We did more of that than being heavy-handed, and that seemed to work all right,” Park said.