WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — In light of this weekend's deadly shootings at the Salt Lake City protest march and WestFest, it's hard not to wonder whether events in Utah need tighter security.
One of the organizers of WestFest told FOX 13 News that discussions are already underway about how to make events safer and how to ensure people use guns responsibly.
"We don't create events to bring harm; we create them to bring unity," said Alyn Toalepai, President of the Utah Pacific Islander Chamber of Commerce.
In his role, Toalepai brings vendors to WestFest each year.
"We even had emergency vehicles, operations unit, everything was there. From your security monitoring: cameras, drones. Everything that needs to be there was there," Toalepai explained. "What wasn't there was the ability to see who was going to do harm. You can never anticipate that."
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The group is starting conversations with police and city officials about next steps.
Toalepai would like to see law enforcement be more engaged and spread out at public events in the future, and believes the bigger concern is how people are using guns at public events.
"It's not an issue with the police department," he said, "this is an issue of citizens misusing and using guns irresponsibly."
The nonprofit Mujeres Unidas de Utah has events coming up on the calendar. Their executive director, Belia Paz, said the events she organizes without security are usually family-friendly and don't serve alcohol, but that could soon change.
"Moving forward in September, we will ask the Salt Lake City Police Department to provide us a couple of officers," she said.
Even with more security, the bigger concern for Toalepai is how guns might be ending up in the wrong hands.
“We’re talking about a 16-year-old, an 18-year-old that died, we’re talking about an 8-month-old baby," said Toalepai. "We’re talking about the next generation. What are we doing to make sure that they’re going to come up in a responsible way.”
