The numbers are in.
With a “strong” police presence throughout the Shambhala Music Festival the province’s finest were able to uncover a little bit more caseload for the court systems.
During Aug. 6-14 RCMP orchestrated numerous traffic road checks, as well as enforcement and patrols conducted within Salmo and on the surrounding roadways within the Kootenay Boundary Regional Detachment area (Highway 3, Highway 3A and Highway 6).
“In an effort to keep area roadways safe, police maintained a strong presence on the highways prior to, during and immediately following Shambhala,” said RCMP staff Sgt. Dan Seibel in a press release.
Shambhala is the largest event in the West Kootenay—held annually on a 200-acre private property site off of Highway 3 near Salmo—and attracts over 10,000 people for its four days.
The festival was marred by the death of Mitchell Joseph Fleischacker from Sidney, B.C. who died from a possible drug-overdose.
The 23-year-old man was found collapsed without any identification early on Sunday, Aug. 12.
A report from the CBC indicated event organizers saw the man collapse around 5 a.m., and first responders found him unconscious and non-responsive but breathing, said festival executive producer Corrine Zawaduk in a written statement.
The medical staff then took the man by ambulance to Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail, but he had a heart attack en route and died, she said. The death was the first ever fatality to occur during Shambhala’s 15-year history.