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BY TOM MORTON~Jackson Hole Star-Tribune
Editor’s note: Harmless hippies, gathering since 1972, are attacked by the feds, who consider their peaceful event a threat requiring “incident management,†that is to say rubber bullets and pepper spray. “Scientists who studied the group say it provides a chance to offer medical help or counseling to people under 30 who are falling through the cracks,†the AP writes in a caption to a photo showing members in tie-dyed t-shirts in a pastoral setting. Helping people who fall through the cracks? Makes sense the feds won’t stand for that.
U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses.
“They were so violent, like dogs,†Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network [www.wtprn.com] after the incident.
“People yelled at them, ‘You’re shooting children,’†Parker said during an interview on the network’s “Rule of Law Show.â€
About 7,000 people have arrived at the gathering near Big Sandy in the Wind River Mountains for the annual Gathering of the Tribes, a seven-day event of fellowship, partying including illicit drug use, praying, and living on the land.
They camp on Forest Service land around the country every year, but the Rainbow family’s nonhierarchical methods — no one can speak for the Rainbows, much less sign a land use permit — often have stymied their relationships.
But rarely do the tensions escalate into violence.
The Forest Service’s Incident Command Team in Rock Springs issued a press release Friday morning, saying officers were patrolling the main meadow of the gathering Thursday evening when they contacted a man who fled and was later caught. Another Rainbow was detained for physically interfering.
Officers began to leave the area with the subjects and were circled by Rainbow participants, according to the news release from Rita Vollmer of the Incident Command Team.
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