‘Chaos’ erupts at fireworks show as woman uses bear spray on crowd, Colorado cops say

Families attending a Fourth of July fireworks show stampeded for the exits at a Trinidad baseball field after a woman unleashed bear spray on the crowd, Colorado police say.

“All of a sudden, it got worse and worse,” spectator Marshall Graves told KUSA. “You could not breathe. After that it was total chaos.”

The woman, whom officers said appeared to be intoxicated, faces multiple assault charges following the incident at 9:19 p.m. local time Monday, Trinidad police said in a news release.

Several people asked her to stop shouting obscenities at the fireworks because children were in the crowd, police said.

When she refused, others approached her to ask her to leave and she sprayed them with bear attack deterrent, causing the crowd to flee, the release said.

The woman told officers she carried bear spray to protect herself from an ex-boyfriend. She was arrested and booked into jail, police said.

Bear spray, which is a type of pepper spray, is considered a pesticide by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to The Washington Post. It carries a warning label that says, “HAZARDS TO HUMANS: May cause irreversible physical eye damage if sprayed in the eye at close range. Contact through touching or rubbing eyes may result in substantial but temporary eye injury. Strongly irritating to nose and skin. Avoid contact with skin or clothing.”

Trinidad is a city of 8,000 people in southern Colorado near the New Mexico border.

Police ask anyone with information about the incident to call 719-846-4441.

This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 4:13 PM with the headline "‘Chaos’ erupts at fireworks show as woman uses bear spray on crowd, Colorado cops say."