ELBA, Minn. – After three calls about a disturbance outside the Elba bars, deputies arrived to find crowds milling around on Main Street, which had been barricaded off for the town’s annual Whitewater Festival. What had been the disturbance? Part of it was a 9-year-old girl dancing for the crowd to the music of a live band. As best as deputies could best figure it out when they arrived, one of the revelers, a man, had been photographing the girl dancing. The girl’s father objected – and somebody was sucker-punched. Who hit who had been lost in the confusion and mayhem of the gathering, which had been swelled through the day to several hundred people. Deputies said they would check surveillance video in the morning at two host bars to get a better sense of the the kerfuffle-turned-violent. Unanswered question: What was a third-grader doing out so late , at 11:30 p.m, at the festival’s usual chaotic and raucous Saturday night finale.
