Man arrested with modified weapon at Peach Festival. Organizers describe incident as an “anomaly” in history

A day after police arrested a man with a “modified” weapon at the Winona Peach Festival, event organizers said the incident was “an anomaly” in the festival’s history.

“There have been occasional fights here and there, you know, overheated people losing their temper, but nothing on this scale,” said Jeff Beattie, Ward 10 councillor and former board member of the Winona Peach Festival. Organizers told CBC Hamilton that Beattie was speaking on behalf of the festival.

“It really is an anomaly because it stands out in terms of the overall history of the festival,” Beattie said.

Hamilton police said a “disturbance” broke out between two people near the median on Saturday night and passersby told police that one of the men had a gun. Police said they used pepper spray on the crowd after some people “disobeyed” when asked to step back.

They then arrested a 23-year-old man from Toronto who they said was in possession of a semi-automatic weapon that had been converted to a fully automatic weapon, as well as a prohibited high-capacity magazine and ammunition.

The man faces several charges of illegal possession of weapons.

At a press conference on Sunday, Inspector Jim Callender of the Hamilton Police Service said police had “prevented what could have been a tragedy at a festival involving thousands of community members.”

Beattie, who has volunteered at the festival for 30 years, told CBC Hamilton the incident was “highly unusual.”

He said he visited the venue on Monday with the festival president and officers from Hamilton Police Services to discuss the situation.

There have been discussions about possible changes organizers could make next year to improve safety, Beattie said, but added that talks are still at an early stage.

“The board and the festival organizers are taking this very, very seriously,” Beattie said. “We will be in ongoing discussions to put together a plan for 2025 to make sure that anything like this and the possibility of something like this happening is absolutely minimized.”

On Monday, police said the investigation into the incident was ongoing and they were trying to speak to witnesses who were at the festival that night.

Police said Sunday the incident was one of two near the festival that evening. About an hour later, at 10:30 p.m., a group of four men attacked another man with a baseball bat in a parking lot near the festival, police said. The suspects fled when police arrived, and the 53-year-old victim was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

However, the police assume that the two incidents have nothing to do with each other.

Last year, police said they received “several reports from concerned parents about assaults on children by other teenagers” at the festival, and there were also “physical altercations among teenagers.”