A day after police arrested a man with a “modified” gun at the Winona Peach Festival, the event’s organizers said the incident was “an anomaly” in the festival’s history.
“There’s been the occasional fight breakouts here and there, you know, overheated people losing tempers, but nothing to this level,” said Ward 10 councillor and past Winona Peach Festival board member Jeff Beattie. Event organizers told CBC Hamilton Beattie was speaking on behalf of the festival.
“It really is an anomaly as it stands out in terms of the overall history of the festival,” Beattie said.
Hamilton police said that on Saturday night a “disturbance” broke out near the midway between two people and bystanders told police one of the men had a gun. Police said they used pepper spray on the crowd after some people “weren’t abiding” when asked to back away.
They then arrested a 23-year-old man from Toronto who they said had a semi-automatic gun modified to be a fully automatic gun, along with a prohibited high-capacity magazine and ammunition.
The man is facing several charges relating to possessing a prohibited gun.
At a press conference on Sunday, Insp. Jim Callender with the Hamilton Police Service said police stopped “what could have been a tragedy at a festival that involved thousands of community members.”
Beattie, who has volunteered with the festival for 30 years, told CBC Hamilton the incident “highly unusual.”
He said he visited the event grounds on Monday with the festival president and officers from Hamilton Police Services for a debrief of the situation.
There was discussion about potential changes organizers could make next year to enhance security, Beattie said, but added the conversation was in early stages.
“The board of directors and the festival organizers do take this very, very seriously,” Beattie said. “We’ll be engaging in ongoing conversations to come up with a plan for 2025 to make sure that something like this and the ability for something like this to happen is absolutely minimized.”
On Monday, police said they were still investigating the incident and are looking to speak to witnesses who were at the festival that night.
Police said Sunday the incident was one of two near the festival that night. Around an hour later, at 10:30 p.m., police said a group of four males were attacking another male with a baseball bat at a parking lot close to the festival. The suspects fled when police arrived and the 53-year-old victim was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Police said however they believe the two incidents to be unrelated.
Last year, police said they received “multiple reports from concerned parents about children being victimized by other youth” at the festival, as well as “physical altercations among teenagers.”