Visalia police calling for witnesses after two women stabbed at Jugfest

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Workers spent Monday morning tearing down and packing up after another Jugfest. It was the first ever at Mooney Grove Park in Visalia.

The free country music festival took place at the park on Saturday and featured acts such as Jackie Lee and Randy Houser.

In addition to private security, police were patrolling the festival at around 6:45 p.m. when they responded to a fight involving two groups of women some distance from the stage.

They located two women in their early 20s who had been stabbed. One was treated at the scene for a minor stab wound, while the other was brought to Kaweah Delta in critical condition.

Police say she had surgery and is still recovering as of Monday.

"When officers arrived, they found all of the parties involved had been consuming alcohol and were intoxicated to some point," Sgt. Damon Maurice with the Visalia Police Department said. "And it's making the investigation difficult at this point."

Maurice says both stabbing victims were somewhat reluctant to provide information about what happened. He says police need to sort out who was with who and what started the fight.

"There were eye witnesses we believe that saw the altercation," he said. "We're asking those folks to come forward to help us try to identify what exactly happened and lead us to an arrest of hopefully the suspects."

The general manager of Momentum Broadcasting, the company that owns KJUG Country, says thousands attended this year's Jugfest and that something like this has never happened before.

He says they'd like to have the event at Mooney Grove Park again.