APALACHICOLA NATIONAL FOREST — One man is dead and two are in critical condition following an early morning shooting at a Rainbow Gathering near the Franklin-Liberty County line.
Capt. Chester Creamer, with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed the shooting occurred sometime before 2:30 a.m. EST Thursday, when the call came in to the Sheriff’s Office. Officers arrived on the scene at 3:09 a.m.
Creamer said the incident at the end of Wright Lake Road is believed to have taken place around a campfire at Wright Lake, and that alcohol was a factor. He declined to release any names because all the families have not yet been notified.
“These folks don’t have a lot of documentation on them,” he said. “We have to do a lot of legwork on that.
“None of them were locals — period,” he said.
Creamer said a white male was dead from gunshot wounds and that another had sustained multiple life-threatening bullet wounds. The shooter had been beaten and stabbed by some within the Rainbow Gathering, and the shooter was detained until police arrived, Creamer said. The injured were being treated at a Tallahassee hospital.
Because the incident occurred on federal land in the Apalachicola National Forest, near a boat landing, the Sheriff’s Office was being assisted by law enforcement officers with the U.S. Forest Service. In addition, the mobile crime lab from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was on the scene, gathering evidence Thursday.
Alan Smith, deputy district ranger for the Apalachicola National Forest, said the incident took place about a half-mile west of the developed campground, which remains open.
Wright Lake is about 2 miles south of Sumatra, off State 65. The Rainbow Gathering had been taking place there since last weekend.
Rainbow Gatherings are annual meetings of the Rainbow Family of the Living Light, a loosely defined collection of people associated with hippie culture. The original Rainbow Gathering was in 1972 and has been replicated throughout the years, in regional gatherings, often in national forests.
Susan Blake, public affairs specialist with the U.S. Forest Service in Tallahassee, said the Rainbow group has a special uses permit to have a seed camp between March 1 and 6, the actual gathering March 7-22, and cleanup slated for March 23-30. She said it was not yet clear whether a violation of the terms of that permit would result in the gathering being closed down by forestry officials.
“All the information’s being gathered now,” she said.