Loud noises and running cops figure into every paranoid stoner's nightmares, but Denver got both in real life yesterday at their packed pot celebration. The collective mellows of the tens of thousands of visitors at Civic Center Park were harshed when a series of gunshots rang out, wounding two, according to the Associated Press.

"I sort of panicked," said Ian Bay, who was skateboarding through the park when the sound of shots erupted through his headphones. "I thought I was going through an anxiety thing because so many people were coming after me."

Stephanie Riedel was frolicking with her hula hoop when she heard a handful of shots fired. "I couldn't make sense of what it was at first," she told the AP. "We were all having a good time and I was in the mindframe of, we're here at a peace gathering."

During the pot-scented set of Lil' Flip (who skipped his court date last week for charges involving marijuana and an AR-15 rifle), shots were fired and wounded a man, woman, dog, and grazed a juvenile, reported Denver's ABC 7 News.

Police, who were there to maintain crowd security in the wake of the Boston bombings rather than arrest the entire population of Denver for illegally smoking in public, are still searching for one or two suspects. In the meantime, they're crowdsourcing festival-goers for video or photo leads.

In all of the rally's 29 mellow years, this is the first time there's been a shooting, said organizer Miguel Lopez to ABC 7 News. To have one yesterday was an especially big disappointment, since it marked the inaugural 4/20 of Colorado's legalization of marijuana.

Image by AP