UTAH COUNTY — One person was injured while crowd surfing at a Halloween party near Utah Lake Saturday night, according to Utah County officials.
The event was a large party with “thousands of people,” according to Sgt. Spencer Cannon with the Utah County Sheriff’s Department.
And it was an event that had been canceled a few days before Halloween.
On its Instagram page, the party organizer Utah Tonight, wrote that “it is with a heavy heart that we have made the difficult but necessary decision to cancel the Protest on Halloween this Saturday.” The post went on to read that their plan to follow “every known guideline to combat COVID-19 would be insufficient for some.”
The organizers wrote they are concerned about “the media and some public servants [being given] the ability to control what we consider to be a ‘pursuit of happiness.” They also wrote they are concerned about “inconsistent and hypocritical guidelines for managing the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Despite the cancelation posted on Instagram, the party was held Saturday night on the west side of Utah Lake near the Knolls, according to a report by the Deseret News.
Utah County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon confirmed that a few thousand people showed up for the event and that the sheriff’s department only learned of it after calls for medical help came in for the girl that was crowd surfing.
Cannon also said there were multiple car crashes in the area as people tried to leave the party.
While both the organizers and the crowd were cooperative when asked to shut down the event, the Deseret News reported the organizers may face criminal charges for holding a mass gathering without a permit.
On Friday the state of Utah sent out a rare statewide emergency alert warning of the rapid spread of COVID-19 within the state. The alert reminded Utahns that masks are required in high transmission areas and that gatherings must be limited to 10 people or fewer.