A 27-year-old man from Olympia died of drug poisoning at the Bass Canyon music festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre on Sunday, and a 28-year-old man from Seattle has been arrested in connection.
Quincy Travers has been charged with one count of delivery of or possession with intent to deliver cocaine, said Grant County prosecutor Brandon Guernsey.
Travers has not been charged with homicide. More charges could be coming pending laboratory drug testing and an autopsy report, the prosecutor said.
The 27-year-old had suffered a cardiac arrest after he and one of his friends allegedly bought and ingested illicit drugs from Travers, another concertgoer, at the electronic dance music festival, Grant County sheriff’s office spokesperson Kyle Foreman said.
The 27-year-old felt ill shortly after and was taken to the festival’s medical facility for treatment where he died, Foreman said. The facility’s staff then called police, and detectives from the sheriff’s office arrived to investigate around 6:30 p.m.
The friend of the 27-year-old then helped police with an undercover sting operation to get Travers to sell the drug again, Foreman said. An undercover detective joined the friend while plainclothes detectives surrounded them.
Police then arrested Travers without incident.
Travers was booked into the Grant County Jail on a $7,500 bail and was still in custody Tuesday morning, Guernsey said.
The origin of the drugs Travers allegedly sold to the 27-year-old and his friend is unknown, Foreman said, but the sheriff’s office often finds that illicit drugs are smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Drug sales and digestion are commonplace at music festivals like these. Foreman said sellers target open air concerts to make a profit, walking through the crowd to make sales and even coordinating meetups on apps.
While Foreman encouraged concertgoers not to take illicit drugs, he also advised people not to take drugs that they do not know the origin of.
Travers’s next court appearance will be Sept. 9.
