KENNEWICK — The police detective who shot and wounded a soldier accused of killings at The Gorge Amphitheatre’s campground in Washington last weekend is a plaintiff in a guns right lawsuit filed against Washington state.
A hearing in the case is set for Friday June 23 in the Thurston County Courthouse after the case was moved from Grant County.
Edgar Salazar of the Moses Lake Police Department is a plaintiff in the case along with five other individuals; Millard Sales, a gun store in Ephrata; Guardian Arms, a gun store in Moses Lake; Alliance for Gun Responsibility and the Silent Majority Foundation based in Pasco.
Salazar is credited with shooting and wounding James M. Kelly, 26, who is accused of shooting and killing two people at the campground several hundred yards from the concert venue and wounding three others.
Kelly, a U.S. Army specialist, reportedly had just shot his girlfriend twice, resulting in permanent and life-threatening injuries, when law enforcement moved in and Salazar shot him, according to court records.
“Edgar is a hero in our eyes,” said the Silent Majority Foundation in a blog post., “Thank you, Edgar, for your quick, courageous and decisive action!”
The post also invited followers to come to the courthouse and pray or offer other peaceful support to plaintiffs on Friday as they ask for a temporary restraining order against a ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic weapons in Washington.
Gov. Jay Inslee signed what he calls a ban on assault weapons into law in April after he and Attorney General Bob Ferguson requested the Legislature approve SHB 1240.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction against the new law.
Inslee said in a blog post that evidence that assault weapon sales bans prevent gun deaths comes from America’s recent history.
When a federal assault weapons sales ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004, mass shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur as compared to the periods before and after, he said.
But the Silent Majority Foundation argued that the measure will do nothing to curb crime, while impairing the right of law-abiding citizens to continue purchasing the most commonly owned type of firearm in the country.
“Semiautomatic firearms have been in widespread use for more than a century, and are as American as baseball and apple pie,” it said in a post shortly after the ban became law.
The suspect in the Gorge campground shootings allegedly used a handgun, not an assault weapon.
The Washington State Patrol said Kelly was on psilocybin mushrooms at the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival and believed the world was ending when he starting shooting people at the campground.
Kelly is a fire support specialist assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment with the U.S. Army, according to Joint Base Lewis-McChord officials. He has been an active duty service member since 2021.
