Legendary musician Sheila E. is sharing her outrage with a California music festival that allowed her performance to continue after an audience member died in the crowd.
Organizers behind the annual Carson Jazz Festival are facing criticism after a woman named Shari Sanders was found unconscious in the VIP section of the event Saturday amid the ongoing heat wave in the area, which brought on temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sanders was later pronounced dead after what her family told local station KTLA was a heat-related illness. Her cause of death is still under investigation. The Independent has contacted the city of Carson and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office for further comment.
Now, Sheila E. — a Grammy-winning artist known as the “Queen of Percussion” — is speaking out against festival promoters for letting her take the stage before Sanders’ body was officially removed from the venue at around 5 p.m. local time.
“This has never happened to me in my entire career,” the 68-year-old percussionist said in an Instagram video shared Monday. “It was devastating. Her name was Shari Sanders.”
Sheila went on to note that it was an extremely hot day in Southern California and that people had been lining up for the event all day.
The musician said that while she was waiting for her set at the festival, she saw first responders “going through the crowds like crazy.”
“We were thinking, it's so hot outside [that] maybe people were dehydrated, and we could see that through the window of the dressing room,” she said. “We never got our sound check, so things were running late. Production wasn't there, stuff was just happening.”
She continued: “We were waiting for the next band... all of a sudden everything just stopped.”
“The lady, Shari Sanders, was saving seats — this is what we were told — was saving seats for her family and I guess someone saw her kind of slumped over a little bit, again this is what we were told,” she explained.
A doctor at the festival then performed CPR on Sanders for 20 minutes but could not revive her, the musician said.
After Sanders passed away, her body was covered until it could be taken away, about a half hour after Sheila finished her performance.
However, Sheila said she thought “everything was taken care of.”
During her performance, Sheila paused the show to ask the crowd to say a blessing for Sanders and held a moment of silence for her without realizing her body was still at the park.
"Little did we know, that after we were done performing, we went back to the dressing room, we were then told at 5 p.m. — we were done around 4:30 — they had just picked up her body,” she said.
Sheila said that she felt sick when she learned that Sanders’ body had stayed at the festival.
“Production, whoever, the city, the mayor was there,” she said. “All of you guys should have stopped the festival. I’m sorry. You should have stopped the festival.”
She then criticized the festival for having few hydration stations throughout the venue.
“Carson City, you need to do better,” she added. “They've been bragging about that they've been doing it for 40 years, but this is not good to have people sitting outside for three hours to be able to come to a festival.”
Sheila concluded: “This was horrible. Horrible. And I’m so sorry that I played because I would not have gotten onstage knowing that she was still there.”
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