|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
Rainbow Family Targeted By Plainclothes Police In Shawnee NF |
Current rating: 0 |
by Jerry Love
(No verified email address) |
02 Oct 2001
|
|
17 People Arrested at IL Regional Gathering Last Weekend |
To whoever cares to listen:
In recent days 17 people were rounded up and taken to jail from the parking lot of the Illinois regional. Police were local (Saline or Pope Co.) they were not in uniform or in police cars. They did not identify themselves. They did not give a reason for arrest. All were searched. Only a few were found with illegal substances on them. Two infants and their mothers were taken to jail. Can someone help?! Oct. 1 is their first court appearance.
Daily Egyptian Article
Police arrest 17 at Shawnee National Forest
Burke Speaker
Daily Egyptian
An illegal gathering of people within the Shawnee National Forest was raided by the Pope County Sheriff's Department and other units Saturday, which resulted in 17 arrests for multiple drug and alcohol violations.
Moonshine, LSD, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, $300 in counterfeit money and opium were confiscated from members of the Rainbow Tribe of the Living Light, a group of people assembling at the One Horse Gap area of the Shawnee. The area, located 5 miles south of Herod, is the chosen location this year for the group's annual regional gathering.
Eleven vehicles, some of which were taken because of insurance problems, and about $10,000 in cash also was confiscated.
Thirteen men and four women were arrested, and two babies were taken from two of these women and are in the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to Malcolm Jowers, the head of a national incident management team brought in to assist the Forest Service in handling the Rainbow tribe.
"We targeted A Camp, but two others were interfering [with the arrests] and were charged," Jowers said Sunday.
Camp A is the only area of the gathering that drinking is allowed. In response to the raid, Rainbow tribe members say that police are harassing them and fining them on outrageous charges because of their alternative lifestyles.
"It's sad when you're in America gathering for peace, harmony and love, you get arrested," said a 22-year-old man named Wolf. "They took babies away from their mothers. They're just trying to run us out of here."
One man had a makeshift water filter removed by officers who fined him $100. The fine was for "construction, placing or maintaining improvement of National Forest land," according to the statement on the ticket issued.
The gathering still is deemed illegal by the U.S. Forest Service because the group has not obtained a free, non-commercial group permit to use the area. Regulations dictate that any group of more than 75 people must have a permit, and Forest Service officials said the group's number was more than 100.
Jowers and another officer were performing a count of the gathering Sunday, and since numbers had exceeded 75, they were prepared to issue more fines. Officers arrested the people on drug and alcohol charges after making controlled drug buys from certain members of the group.
Forest Service officials were unavailable for comment Sunday, but Jowers said they still were working with the Rainbow tribe in educating them about sanitation, safety of visitors and dealing with sensitive forest resources.
People have been gathering since about Sept. 22, though the official date of the festival is Oct. 1 through the 14, according to the Rainbow tribe's website. Attendance is estimated to reach between 500 and 700, based on past crowds.
The Hardin County Sheriff's Department, the Golconda Chief of Police and law enforcement officers from the Illinois State Police, the Forest Service and the incident management team also contributed with the arrests.
Burke Speaker can be reached at bspeaker (at) siu.edu |
See also:
http://www.dailyegyptian.com/fall01/10-01-01/arrests.html
|
