Rainbow Tribe, Faux-Prophecy, Rapes, Murders, Drugs, Environmental Destruction

[educatedindian]

I realized this is old news for most forum members, and for most people in NDN Country. But plenty of other don't know about their ugly history. We need a thread just to have that information gathered in one place, that hopefully will become one of the leading sources online on the RT.

So the most important information to gather:
Fake prophecy
Rapes and other sexual assaults
Murders
Drug dealing and overdoses
Other crimes
Environmental damage
Cultural appropriation
Cult behavior/isolation of its members/censoring criticism

We have two related threads, the Black Hills gathering
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4639.0
Paul Robin Denton, a leader of the cult convicted of rape.
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4644.0

I'll start with reposting this very insightful article about the damage done by a typical cult gathering.

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 https://sustainablethoughtbox.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/the-rainbow-family%E2%80%99s-footprint-in-our-national-forests/
....Add all these factors together, human feces, animal feces from pet dogs, urine, toxic chemicals from cigarette butts, chemicals from all the bleach, soap, shampoo, toothpaste etc, diapers, tampons, toilet paper, tin cans, plastic bottles and oil from vehicles in disrepair left behind.  Remember, all these toxic substances are going to be deposited in YOUR NATIONAL FOREST over a period of 6 days! Not over a long time when the environment might have a chance to deal with such an influx of toxins, but over a period of 6 days!

So let’s add it all up:

23.14 tons of feces
22,222 gallons of urine (82.74 tons)
120 TONS OF TRASH
6 miles of compacted soil
18,900 tampons (0.87 ton)
3840 diapers (0.48 ton)
1/2 TON of soiled toilet paper
937.5 gallons of used toothpaste (3.26 tons)
937.5 gallons of soap (3.26 tons)
3,750 gallons of bleach (13.03 tons)
151.2 pounds of cigarette butts (0.06 ton)
1.82 tons of animal feces

Over 6 days, the Rainbows will deposit around 249.16 tons of waste in the Santa Fe National Forest.
That’s almost 250 TONS of WASTE just to pray for peace??

Is all this harm to the environment really worth getting this many people together for a few minutes?
That is indisputably a huge footprint.
Thinking about the seventh generation, the footprint of the Rainbow Gathering this year may even outlive some of the Rainbow Family members.
We can only conclude, that the Rainbow Gathering is NOT a sustainable practice and should be discontinued for the good of our National forests.

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One of the comments on that post is just as insightful. Bolding is mine.

Douglas Humetewa (16:59:07) : 
Thank You for this! Here’s a long post I posted on the Zeitgeist forum warning people that the Rainbow’s Origin story of the Hopi Prophesies is fakelore. They are a dangerous cult. No legitimate Native Nation has any respect for them.

The Rainbow tribe has been described most charitably as a public nuisance. It is, in fact, a DANGEROUS CULT. Lies promoted by the Rainbow Family are very DESTRUCTIVE to indigenous people, whose perspectives have not been considered in this forum. The term “constructive” usually means in line with your indoctrination into whiteness.

One of the main features of a cult is trying to control the language that people can use.

A favorite tactic of cult apologists are to re-define the term cult so that their cult falls outside of the definition.
 You don’t have to physically disconnect from friends and family to be in a dangerous cult.
 The process can be done internally.
 You can still function in society and be completely controlled by a cult.
 No one sets out to join a cult and no one who is currently in a cult will admit to it.
 All cult leaders deny that they are running cults.
 You never hear anyone coming out in public and saying, Hey, I’m a cult leader.

The characteristics of the Rainbow Family that lead me to conclude that they are a dangerous cult are as follows:

Members are kept from getting information that the leaders don’t want them to have.

The ideology is based on a foundation of lies, white supremacist fantasy and Christian apocalyptic prophesies.

The leaders engage in black and white thinking and create enemies for the cult to demonize and attack.

There are two standards of ethics, one for in group members and one for out group members.

Members a substantial amount of time on the internet attacking critics and justifying their unjustifiable activities.

I know people who have been hacked, attacked, smeared and “fair gamed” by Rainbow Family leadership.

I know of websites and discussion forums that have been taken down for no other reason than they criticized the Rainbow Family.

The Rainbows take a page from the Scientologist “fair game” policy in making false copyright claims and initiating S.L.A.P.P. suits in order to silence all criticism against them.

The Rainbows have NO respect for the civil liberties of anyone who does not accept their propaganda unconditionally without questioning it. There is no place for dissent in the Rainbow family.

Barry Adams, Aron Kay, Garrick Beck, Fred Nemo, Barry Sarchow, Martin Cheney, Rob Savoy
 Karin Zirk, and the rest of the Rainbow leadership do NOT under any circumstances represent the Hopi people or our spiritual beliefs and practices. They are deliberately misrepresenting our prophesies for they own political ends and are about as far away from being Hopi as a person can be. There’s no prophesy about them in ours or any other indigenous tradition. They’re all just bunch of narcissists, full of their own delusions of grandeur who simply don’t care that they are lying about the Hopi culture or that they are damaging the Hopi people by continuing to spread these lies about our prophesies. They commit this offense against us because they have been indoctrinated all their lives to see themselves as superior to the Hopi by virtue of the power and privilege their white skin affords them.

Anyone who is genuinely interested in finding out the truth about the Rainbow Family can check them out. If you haven’t been brainwashed by the cult, the first thing you should notice is that it is highly unusual that there is virtually NO criticism of the Rainbow Family on the internet. This is something that just doesn’t happen with a legitimate group. Every legitimate group has its critics and answers criticism honestly. So you should be able to find a diversity of opinion on the group. This is not so with the Rainbows. Virtually everything written about the Rainbow Family comes directly from the Rainbow family and can be traced back to a few individuals putting out propaganda from one source. The family control information about them as a cult controls information about itself.

Not having access to dissenting opinions, most white people have completely swallowed the Rainbow party line. Even the so-called alternative press merely repeats what it is told about the Family.

Like all cults, the Rainbows always defend themselves dishonestly and always conveniently omit that their strongest critic is and has always been the Native American people. There is no group so hated in Indian Country than the New Agers who mimic our spiritual practices and mock our traditions. Among those New Age frauds, the most despised is the Rainbow Family of Living light. It’s not about selling our spirituality to the highest bidder; it’s about their extreme arrogance and white supremacist ideology. Every single bit of their self-promoting delusion about being the fulfillment of the Hopi prophesies is a complete fabrication. The leadership is fully cognizant of this, but they continue to promote their self-serving propaganda, with the full knowledge that every word of it is a lie. Real Indians understand this as one more insidious crimes of the Colonists and one more step towards the complete annihilation of our spiritual practices.

In case you just hatched from an egg, it’s RACIST for privileged white folks to go around claiming that they’re the “New White Indians” and the fulfillment of indigenous people’s prophesies. The Rainbows make the same mistake all the missionaries of the past have in assuming that all Native spiritual practices are alike and that it is appropriate to go around proselytizing a homogenous “Native American” religion to every white person who wants to gain control over us. Anyone who knows the first thing about us knows that our religions are private. We don’t talk about them in public. We don’t offer workshops on how to do sacred ceremonies and everyone who does this is a fraud.

Like all white people have always done for centuries, the Rainbows claim that their “good hearts” and “good intentions” should excuse their revisionist history and their outright lies about who they really are. The Rainbow Family of Living Light has always ignored, trivialized and disrespected the legitimate tribal leaders who have confronted them on their disrespect and refused to be subservient to their desire to know everything about us. They deal with our leadership in the exact same way that their shameful ancestors dealt with them – with dishonesty and arrogance.

If you can read big words, check out Michael I. Niman’s books, People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia (9780870499890). Niman himself, is a brainwashed Rainbow cult member, but he somehow managed to escape the “drum trance” long enough to think for himself and complete his dissertation. Most of the book is just a mindless repetition of the Rainbow party line, but Chapter 7, Fakelore attempts to expose the lies on which the Rainbow philosophy is built. Inman manages to quote several indigenous scholars and the fraudulent Ward Churchill tries explains the racism, arrogance and hypocrisy of the “Rainbow tribe”. Inman reveals his whiteness when he favors the words of a Whiteman, Ward Churchill, over the many indigenous women who have written eloquently on the subject of cultural imperialism by white “progressives”. However, it’s the only criticism written by a white man and most white people can’t overcome their racism long enough to listen to indigenous women.

I have spoken to indigenous leaders who know the true nature of the Rainbow family and I can tell you that what really happened back in the 1970s when the Rainbow lie was born. There were a bunch of young white males who wanted an excuse to do a lot of drugs and have a lot of sex and they knew the best way to do that was to invent a religion that was beyond the reach of the authorities. Instead of approaching tribal spiritual leader in a respectful manner and listening to their ideas, the Rainbows went directly to the library and found books written by white Christians like themselves that told them what they wanted to hear – that they were really Gods to the inferior savages. This was around the time that Carlos Castaneda’s literary hoax was also gaining popularity with white people who knew nothing about NDNS and wanted to find any excuse to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs. Also, the distorted, warped white supremacist writing of McFadden was becoming popular with whites. McFadden lifted his work from Christian evangelicals who wanted to convert NDNS to Christianity. He discovered an invented a story about a “Great White Brother” who would wear a red shirt, carry the lost stones of the Hopi prophesy. This story didn’t come from the Hopi; it was taken directly from Nazi occult beliefs that were popular in Germany in the 1930s. Research the Thule society and you’ll find the real roots of the Rainbow Family’s “Hopi prophesy”.

Obsessed with the Christian evangelical lie, the cult’s leader, Barry “Plunker” Adams started going from tribe to tribe carrying around something that looked like chunks of concrete and wearing a red shirt. The truth is that Adams was strongly rebuked by every legitimate spiritual leader he approached. He was told that he were too indoctrinated as a white Christians to even begin to understand indigenous spiritual practices and told to go back to his own communities and work on his many short comings. He was instructed to develop humility. Like all white people, he refused to listen and chose to lie about his interactions with legitimate NDNS. He continued to go from tribe to tribe, determined to find some oppressed and powerless NDN who defer to his superior white intelligence and validate his fabricated Hopi prophesy. He enraged and upset a lot of people, but he never found anyone who would support his delusions. He went back to the group and started putting out literature using the name of Thomas Banyaca, one of the four men chosen by the traditional Hopi leaders to carry the message of the Hopi people to support his new libertine religion. (Just about everything you read on the internet about Thomas Banyaca about the Hopi prophesies is complete and total bullshit most of it is just a repetition of Adam’s lies.)

Upon hearing of this, Thomas Banyaca became enraged when he heard that Barry was using his name to justify his delusions of grandeur. He publicly told the Rainbow Family to stop promoting their lies about the Hopi prophesy. He even had a website put up warning white people not to believe the Rainbows lies about the Hopi prophesy. The Rainbows had it shut down for “hate speech”. Up until the day he died on February 6, 1999 Banyaca insisted that he never met or spoke with Barry Adams, that there was no such prophesy of a Great White brother who would take over for the Hopi and that the Rainbows must stop spreading this false prophesy.

 Like all white people before them, the Rainbows ignored the words of real NDNS and created a fantasy NDN in their heads who would be completely subservient to their white supremacist ideology. To this day, the Rainbow Family does everything in its power to keep the public from learning the truth about its origins.

Your newsgroup will probably be attacked by the family for this post.

White people only believe the words of white people, so the lie that was repeated often enough has become the truth to the predominantly white Rainbows and their willfully ignorant apologists.

Their single issue is being able to camp in the National Forest without getting a permit. They waste the ACLU’s resources defending this ridiculous action and they continue to ignore indigenous people rights not to have them on tribally controlled land guaranteed by treaty and by NAGPRA.

If you are really so concerned with “carrying capacity”, you will object to so many people inhabiting such a small area.
 The only Rainbow criticism that remains on the internet is Liz Ditz’s blog.
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2004/07/rainbow_family_.html

Not to speak out against the Rainbow Gathering is pure hypocrisy on your part.

The Rainbows have come into conflict with several tribes, the most notable is the Paiute, but the Rainbows have had horrible relations with every tribal leader they’ve had to deal with over their sacrilege. The Ojibwe Nations voted unanimously to keep them off of tribal lands, but the Rainbows ignored their vote. Tribes in California, the Fort Bidwell Indian Community Council and the Pitt River tribe, tribes in North Carolina and the Wyoming Shoshone have been trying to stop Rainbow gatherings on their land for decades, but you will never hear the tribal perspective presented by the white dominated alternative press. The Rainbows didn’t even bother to consult the many concerned New Mexican tribes this year before they invaded the Santa Fe National forest and deposited their shit in archeological sites.

The Rainbows family has a long shameful history of ignoring laws intended to protect the rights of Indigenous people. They use the same tactic every year to stop any input from legitimate tribal leaders. First, the seed camp shows up wherever they want and set up camp in mid June when they KNOW it’s too late to stop the gathering. Then, the leadership refuses to inform the Forest Service so they can inform the legitimate tribal leaders that there will be people on lands they may control. They deliberately don’t give the forest service enough time to contact legitimate tribal leaders so they can’t determine if they’ll be violating NAGPRA. They arrogantly demand that tribal leaders tell them where their sacred grounds are located. When they find sacred grounds, they go out and find their own false tribal leaders to say whatever the Rainbows want them to say. They dig up indigenous bones, shit all over them and leave their filth in OUR sacred lands all so they can have a big selfish naked pot party in the woods. When tribal elders visit the gathering, Rainbow taunt them and insult them. The Rainbows justify all this as exercising their religious freedom rights, but they have never shown any concern for the religious freedom of the true and legitimate guardians of this land.

Most of the Rainbows who really push this event just a bunch of dirty old men, who are really motivated by the opportunity to have sex with the gullible young white women who come to the gathering seeking drugs. The people attracted to the event are increasingly mentally unbalanced, violent drug addicted WHITE people who either can’t or won’t contribute in any real way to society. The Rainbow Family does nothing about the social injustices that are creating these type of followers. All they care about is winning a meaningless battle with the forest service, getting their way and having a big party without being accountable for destroying the environment around them. They preach about sustainability, but can’t even manage it for 6 days. They rely on their hypocrisy being overlooked if they mouth a few vague environmental platitudes. They do nothing to help anyone else and they can’t even build a small permanent sustainable community. They have made an art form out of selfishness and white entitlement. The Rainbow Family never did anything but fight for its right to play Indian and party.

I’m not surprised that some people feel “symbiotic” to the Rainbow family – whatever that is.
 Many of the people attracted to ZM are a lot like the Rainbow Family. They share the same colonial mentality and the same delusions about being the world’s “Great White” environmental saviors.

It’s the same immature narcissism you see among young white libertarian men. It’s the same arrogance we’re come to expect from whites.

Perhaps the problem you’re having with people of color accepting your group is that your great grand Pooh-ba’s emotional and intellectual development stopped when he was 14 years old, like so whites many who are attracted to utopian fantasies.

I’ve been reading the posts in this group for a long time and I can see how those with a New Age agenda are trying to dominate and control everyone else. This group clearly has the potential to become a dangerous cult.

There are too many people associated with this group who are as delusional, dishonest and disrespectful as the Rainbow Family. You all just keep making the same mistake over and over again. And that is why you will fail, not because you’re too intellectually and spiritually advanced for us ignorant savages who distrust your motives. You all need to check yourselves.

 You need to re-think your ridiculous plan and re-group and listen to people who don’t share your white Christian indoctrination. White utopian communities always fail because the people in them don’t have the courage to confront their indoctrination and colonialism and chose instead to escape into fantasy. I see this group as nothing but an extension of colonialism. White people who know what’s best for the rest of the world going out and promoting their ideology with missionary zeal. This is nothing new or revolutionary. It’s just the same arrogance and white supremacy I’ve come to expect from you. You don’t know how to listen. You never have in the past and there’s no reason to believe this generation will be any different. Your utopian vision is just another form of manifest destiny.

I’m sure you’ll censor and attack my words, so I’m posting it in places where you’ll never see it. Places where indigenous people gather.

My hope is that just one of you who reads this post has the courage and honesty to confront your shadows and start the honest self-reflection on your colonial mentality that is the first step to really changing white imperialism. If you want to eliminate colonialism, start with your own heads. Stop your own cultural imperialism. Stop pretending to be Indian. Stop playing with our sacred ceremonies

“The American Indian Movement was dedicated to resolve, change and educate
 America out of its ignorance.” — Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman

[educatedindian]

Article and comments from former cult members.

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http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2004/07/rainbow_family_.html
Sunday, July 04, 2004
Rainbow Family a Public Nuisance

I hate to say it. My youthful self is staring at me, incredulous. But the Rainbow Family is not a lovely, benign gathering. It is is nuisance to the locals, a burden to taxpayers, and a threat to the environment. Forest Service lands are not appropriate settings for temporary camps of 10,000 to 20,000 people. If they want to gather, do it at a fairground or some other urban setting with infrastructure. You think I'm being silly? If there are 15,000 people there, they are going to produce almost six tons of feces per day. No sewage disposals or portapotties--so it is all buried in slit toilets. Would you want to camp around there?

rainbow gathering 2004

See the image above? All those little dots? Those are people. Over 16,000 at one place deep in a national forest.

Oh, and here's what one Rainbow had to say about the locals' concerns: They claim they were sensitive to issues concerning the gathering, including complaints by local Indian tribes that the gathering was damaging sensitive cultural resources. A person who has been coming the Gathering for years, one Vee, contended, "We have the right to gather, and this is government land. So, we argue--we arm wrestle with the government on how to do things a lot."

Vee also brushed off complaints from Modoc and Lassen County people about the gathering, saying that the local economy profits wherever Rainbows gather. "There's always controversy, but it always works its way out."

Cost estimates for the National Incident Management Team: The Forest Service has budgeted $720,000 for a National Incident Management Team to oversee this year's event in much the same way the service would react to a large wildfire, though overall costs will run much higher. (That's about $45/head based on 16,000 people--just for the management team.)

And if I read that "everybody with a bellybutton is a Rainbow" line one more time, I might puke.
 
This morning the Mercury News had an article on the "Rainbow Family", a travelling collection of "alternative" individuals who foregather yearly on Forest Service lands. Until recently, those charged with administering those lands haven't had any way of affecting whether or not the thousands arrive. This "free" party in the woods has been going on for 20 years. I've been paying for it, while the Rainbow Family has been successfully denying the law and regulations.

The U.S. Forest Service has been trying to regulate the Rainbows' activities since the first Gathering in 1972, but only since last year has it succeeded in issuing the group a group-use permit for what previously had been officially illegal events.
The Forest Service has budgeted $720,000 for a National Incident Management Team to oversee this year's event in much the same way the service would react to a large wildfire, though overall costs will run much higher.

That's $45 a head....out of the stressed Forest Service Budget. That doesn't count the costs to Modoc and Lassen counties, whose sherifs' departments have to beef up patrols. The Forest Service has put out a FAQ sheet on the Rainbow GatheringAnd I'm not the only one vexed. The gathering is taking place this year in the South Warner Mountains between  Likely and Eagleville about 30 miles southeast of Alturas.

Modoc National Forest is ready. It's been damn dry this year--what if there was a lightning strike and a forest fire?

One person who was interviewed by Harold and News said, "I feel like I'm being invaded." Sherri Ratliff is a resident of Madeline. She's frustrated by the problems caused by the influx of "Rainbows." "They're driving us crazy. They are knocking on the door at all hours of the night," said a frazzled Ratliff. "They're rude, and they are arrogant. They just won't leave us alone."

Cultural vandalism from the estimated 16,000 visitors worry the Paiute.

Participants of the Rainbow Family Gathering are digging latrines by the hundreds on the Modoc National Forest, and thereby raising the ire of the Fort Bidwell Paiute Indian Tribe. "We don't question their right to assemble. We protest their right to dig up cultural artifacts," said Ken Williams, tribal administrator. Tribal Chairman Frances Benally said, " We see the digging of slit trenches, potentially thousands of slit trenches, and hundreds of compost pits as permanent losses to the heritage resource and to us as a people."

Well, the Rainbow People say that  Many of our traditions are based on Native American traditions, and we have a strong orientation to take care of the the Earth. We gather in the National Forests yearly to pray for peace on this planet..

Oh, and I believe the Forest Service goes in before hand, does soil samples, and recommends locations for latrines.

Locals in Lassen County  are also irritated about the arrival of the Rainbow Family.

Rainbow Family members claim they have no leaders, that no single member speaks for the group and that the permit requirement violates their First Amendment rights. As of June 14, no permit has been signed by any member of the Rainbow Family.

The Gathering in Idaho and arrests are covered in the HipForums article. The 1997 Forest Service Final Report (from Oregon).

Here is a  book of photos on the Rainbow Family. This is a supportive web site. A "code of conduct"  manual is here in pdf format. The crime and mortality figures are actually quite low, considering. In 2003, there was one death (an 18-year old male. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette covered the 1999 gathering in the Allegheny National Forest,. which was marked by more tension between staties and Rainbows.

Previous gatherings have also been protested by locals: in Vermont (where the gathering became the second or third largest city in the state): Vermont,  Others at the meeting criticized the Rainbow Family for what they said is an invasion of the small White River Valley and they questioncd whether taxpayer money should be used to provide law enforcement and other needs. "You're bringing a city here, when we -- the voters -- have no control over anything. We don't have my say. I don't think that's fair," said one woman.

The 2000 event in Montana was (temporarily) the seventh largest city, and stressed the resources of the region.

 Charitable organizations in Missoula, such as the Food Bank, the Salvation Army and the Poverello Center were hit hard by the influx, as demand for their services soared. Law enforcement and medical resources in Dillon, especially, were severely taxed by the invasion.

Resentment toward the uninvited guests was inevitable.

At the conclusion of the gathering, Beaverhead County presented a bill for $137,189 to individuals at the Rainbow gathering. The bill included $53,000 for additional law enforcement costs to the county, $51,500 for unpaid bills and extra staffing at the county-run nonprofit hospital, and $23,000 for maintaining an ambulance and crew at Jackson during the gathering....

Oh, the feces calculations. Well, what made me think about it was the Yosemite Superintendent (both Mike Finley and Dave Milhalic) mentioning the line items of sewage treatment and toilet paper in the Yosemite Budget--hundreds of thousands of dollars. Two physicians in Iran published an article on Determination of the Mean Daily Stool Weight, Frequency of Defecation and Bowel Transit Time: Assessment of 1000 Healthy Subjects in which they determined a high fiber diet (such as that consumed at a Rainbow Gathering) produced average stools of 350 grams/day; an average attendance of 15,000 would produce 5,250 kilos or about 5.8 Tons of feces per day.


Posted on Tue, Jul. 06, 2004
 Yearly peace gathering takes turn for worse

By Don Thompson

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 MODOC NATIONAL FOREST - Lucky Sunshine Day says he arrived at this year's Rainbow Family Gathering "a moon cycle ago," measuring time much as he has the 20 years of his life.

He spent much of his youth traveling aboard a Rainbow bus with his parents, Flower and Two Rock. To reach this year's Gathering, he hitched a ride deep into the woods of Northern California.

"It's about love, it's about community, it's about family," he said. "We're here to restore the earth to its natural state." This year's annual peace Gathering got off to a bad start when one participant beat another nearly to death with a shovel for driving too fast through a campground.

....Rainbows consider themselves a tribe, or a gathering of tribes, and have drawn much of their language and tradition from American Indians. Yet their choice of a site drew protests from the Fort Bidwell Indian Community Council, which worried diggings of latrines in particular would harm ancestral artifacts.

....The Forest Service has budgeted $720,000 for a National Incident Management Team to oversee this year's event in much the same way the service would react to a large wildfire, though overall costs will run much higher.

Comments:

I AGREE WITH YOU 100%. Don't let the current "Rainbowers" do what they like to do: mass mail their critics and defend their "Family". I was with them for 12 years and despite the few "good times" I got sick alot due to poor sanitation and "dumpster dived food", saw lots of abuses, date rapes, sexual harassment of women and young girls, abuse of mentally challenged, widespread LSD usage, filthy sanitary conditions, widespread communicable disease which could have been prevented, saw severely mentally ill people advised to not take prescribed medications and some even became SUICIDAL, plus the thieves, and others who loved the lawlessness that goes on within the Rainbow Family and at their gatherings. So you are fully correct. I also apologize for my ignorance about any environmental impact I may have done while believing the lies told to me by other Rainbowers at the time when they told me that the gatherings had "little impact" on the environment and when I asked "Will all the forest animals who ran away when the people come here return when we leave?" and they said "yes' and I believed them, and other naive beliefs i had back then. I really do apologize for even going to any Rainbow Family gatherings in the FIRST place when I should have been getting my life together in the real world which they call "Babylon". It retarded my life for many years in fact. So you have great courage to speak out when the Rainbow people love to mass e-mail any critics to silence them. Thanks for your blog. AN EX-Rainbower!
Posted by: ex-rainbower | Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 08:01 AM


I think the comments on this page reveal the true character of the drainbo leadership. I was one of them too for years, but I've become completely disillusioned. They're all about their own egos. When you criticize them they get very aggressive and they will go to any length to shut down all dissent in their midst. They're basically a cult. They also insist on doing sweat lodges after Native American leaders have asked them to stop and told them how offensive their ceremonies are to them. They found Leonard Crow Dog to conduct ceremonies for them for LOTS OF MONEY. None of their propaganda is true. The event is about the ego of the organizers and its an excuse to screw as many women as they possibly can. The drainbos never do anything real to protect the earth. They're all about getting as much sex as they possibly can by fronting like their enviro warriors. I'm sorry I was ever a part of them. You have a lot of courage to look at who they really are and I thank you for this blog.
Posted by: Ray | Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 05:30 PM

I used to think the Rainbows were kewl and I stupidly believed everything they had to say. Now I'm not so sure. I have a girlfriend who just got back from the gathering and she said they deliberately provoked violence and put their kids in harms way so that people would stop looking at the enviro issues that you raise here and feel sorry for them. I think this is awful. While people are dying on the border fighting for a better life and natives all over are risking their lives to preserve their lands, the Rainbows are acting like selfish spoiled brats. I can see now that all they care about is getting their party on their terms.
Thank you for providing this information. I think it will go a long way to wake the sheeple up!
Posted by: Marisela... | Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at 06:21 PM

Wow these people just reaffirm my hatred of hippies. The 2010 gathering is going to be in my hometown. I have already seen these dirty people on the road begging for money. These events are not only a nuisance to local taxpayers but because of all the human waste is a real problem for local organic farmers. After the event here in 1999 several of the local organic farms lost there "Organic" farming status because of all the human waste that seeped into the ground water. Hippies are incredibly hypocritical being that most of them claim to support organic living but then destroy it with these gatherings.
I respect anyone's constitutional right to assemble and do not believe they should have to sign a permit, however Clarion county should treat this as any other health risk and stop the gathering from happening because it threatens local farming and residences.
But I'm sure that won't happen so I hope they all get dysentery.
Posted by: Chad | Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 12:31 PM

The Rainbow Family is what it is, a cult. They claim to honor native spirituality and tradition, but they disrespect native elders and desecrate sacred lands. They claim to love the earth, but their gatherings permanently damage sensitive wilderness areas. They are self-serving, egocentric, spoiled brats that want to play at hippie commune for a weekend as if that makes their lives any less pathetic than they already are. There needs to be more law enforcement, not less, at these gatherings. If they want a gathering, then let them have it...in prison.
Posted by: Setutu | Monday, August 30, 2010 at 09:34 AM

It's amazing how self-absorbed the Rainbows are, mocking Native American traditions even after Native tribes expressed concerns and not giving a shit if what they're doing is considered offensive to the Native culture, a burden on the local taxpayers, residents, economy, or ecology. I agree with what one person said earlier, I does resemble the attitude of early white settlers taking over Native land, no respect for the people being most affected, no resposibility for the damage to the ecology of the land, and no remorse. COMPLETELY SELF-ABSORBED. If a bunch of fratboys took over there hippy bus for a week long party, I'm sure they'd be preety upset. But no amount of concern or criticism will make them see what's wrong with what they're doing or how they're doing it. They're interest come first without any regard for anyone else, like a bratty child. They just don't care.
Posted by: mikeinhumboldt | Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 08:56 AM

[educatedindian]

http://www.dailycamera.com/features/ci_13100619
Rainbow hippies arrested after Nederland brawl
Heath Urie
Posted:   07/16/2008 09:38:00 AM MDT
Updated:   08/14/2009 07:42:45 PM MDT

Five members of the "Rainbow Family - a loose-knit band of hippies that preaches love, tolerance and peace and is best known for its large gatherings every July - were arrested Tuesday night by Boulder County sheriff's deputies after a violent brawl broke out at the group's campsite near Ward.

Deputies responded at about 6:30 p.m. to a report that a fight had broken out among a group of a dozen people camping out in the area of Ruby Gulch, located on state Forest Service property along the Peak to Peak Highway between the towns of Nederland and Ward.

When deputies arrived, witnesses reported that one man, a Nederland resident aged 34 or 35, was hit in the back of the head multiple times with a shovel and possibly stabbed in the neck during the fight, Sheriff's Sgt. Brian Lindsey said.

Some witnesses reported a second person being stabbed, although no other victims were located, Lindsey said.

"No one could tell us who was stabbed, Lindsey said. "We still haven't got much information.â

The injured man, whose name was not released, had to be air lifted to St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver. He has not been able to speak with investigators about the incident, Lindsey said.

Soon after the fight, sheriff's deputies and Nederland police contacted a bus filled with as many as 12 people leaving the area of the reported fight, Lindsey said.

Andrew Joseph, 24, was arrested on suspicion of felony assault and menacing.

Three others - Patrick Register, 25, Jaron Smith, 30, and Jerry Mullenix, 34 - were arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor assault for allegedly being involved in the brawl.

Ari Perlman, 34, was arrested on an active warrant, Lindsey said.

Sheriff's officials said everyone allegedly involved in the fight was part of a "splinter group of Rainbow Family members who earlier this month were kicked out of a campsite in Pinedale, Wyo., after the group became "very violent during a national assembly.

Lindsey said about 100 members of the larger gathering have so far made their way to the Nederland area. Authorities, he said, are keeping their eyes on them.

"They're coming out still,â Lindsey said. "We always have patrols there. Every year, there have been problems (at the campsite)....

This week was not the first time authorities had to deal with a serious incident at the Rainbow gathering.

In 2006, a member of the Rainbow Family angered over another family member's refusal to help him "regulate others camping at Ruby Gulch stabbed him in the neck, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Court records show that Joshua Sunchild Silva, known by his Rainbow name of Karma Chip, pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and was sentenced to six months in the Boulder County Jail in the stabbing of Gilbert Hernandez, 31.

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http://www.vice.com/read/the-dark-side-of-the-rainbow-gathering
....On Monday, Heber City police arrested a woman known by the Rainbows as “Hitler,” who is accused of stabbing a man at the gathering’s encampment. Authorities are also investigating the death of a 39-year-old New Hampshire woman who was found lying outside at the camp last week. Over the weekend, law enforcement agents said they were called in to respond to a drug overdose at the camp, and to reports that a group of “Rainbows” crashed a wedding on their way to the gathering. “They just went into the reception and started taking the food," Wasatch County Manager Mike Davis told the Salt Lake Tribune. "They weren’t trying to blend in."

“Of the problems that we’ve seen at the Rainbow Gathering, nudity is the least of our worries,” said Dave Whittekiend, the US Forest Service supervisor for the Uinta-Wasatch Cache National Forest, where this year’s gathering is being held. The big concerns, he added, are “drugs and violence.”

In preparation for the official start of the Gathering next week, local authorities have told residents to avoid the campsite and start locking their doors. “While many members of the Rainbow Family are upstanding citizens, a small segment of their population have reportedly caused significant and detrimental impacts on nearby communities,” the county said in a public letter, warning of possible panhandling, trespassing, public urination, and nudity. Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have also taken steps to avoid the Gathering, including relocating two nearby girls camps, and continue to closely monitor the situation,” said LDS spokesperson Eric Hawkins....

Although Niman insisted that reports of violence at the Rainbow Gatherings have been overblown, he conceded that as attendance has fallen off, the events have started to attract other drifters and vagrants who may not have come for the crystal worship and talking circles. “There’s been a crystal-meth problem, a crack problem, a homeless problem,” he said. “You’ll start seeing kids from nearby cities—they have no place else to go, so they’ll show up at the Rainbow Gatherings.”

While these new arrivals are obviously a nuisance for local law enforcement, they are perhaps more troubling to the Rainbow Family, a movement that members say is ill-equipped to deal with knife-wielding lunatics and wedding marauders. “The crowd has changed,” said Savoye, with a touch of sadness. “For many years, the Gatherings were against the use of drugs, except maybe a little pot. Partly, that was to preserve a sense of community. Now, we’re dealing with kids who come to gatherings and use drugs and incite violence. And the Rainbow Family is not really set up to deal with that kind of behavior.

“A lot of these kids end up hanging out more in town and causing trouble with the locals. It’s an embarrassment,” he added. “It's a little bit of a drag that we've sort of become a refugee camp.”

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http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/local/2014/07/16/red-feather-lakes-stabbings-send-three-hospital/12732155/
Site doesn't allow posting. Describes "series" of stabbings by RF that lead to three in hospital.

[Defend the Sacred]

See also the thread from 2015, when Drainbows violated the consensus of their own councils and invaded the Black Hills, including getting some token NDNs to sell out and betray their own communities. Ugliness and protests by multiple Nations resulted, along with deep rifts among the Rainbows themselves. http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4639.0

[Defend the Sacred]

"River Runs Deep"'s post moved to her intro thread here http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4896.0 as it seemed to be mostly about her instead of adding any new info on the Rainbows or Drainbows.

[educatedindian]

http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20170619/preparations-underway-for-rainbow-gathering
Several hundred people from the Rainbow Family of Living Light have already descended on the Malheur National Forest to begin setting up for the 2017 gathering, even as Forest Service staff continue to draft a makeshift management plan to protect natural and cultural resources.

The annual Rainbow Gathering was announced for July 1-7 at Flagtail Meadow off Forest Service Road 24, about 20 miles northwest of Seneca. Attendance is expected to peak between 10,000 and 30,000 participants, which would be roughly four times larger than the entire population of Grant County.

Groups of 75 people or more are typically required to obtain a special use permit in order to camp on national forest land. However, the loose-knit Rainbow Family skirts that rule by emphasizing they are a non-organization with no official leaders.

Instead, the Forest Service will assign an operating plan with conditions and criteria to protect natural resources, safety and public health at the gathering. The plan also addresses post-event cleanup.

Ethan Ready, a Forest Service spokesman in charge of handling the Rainbow Gathering, said 20 different natural resource specialists have visited the site to identify potential impacts. Their findings should be completed soon, Ready said.

Ready works for the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont, where last year’s Rainbow Gathering was held. He said Rainbow members are usually open to working with the agency and want to adhere to the rules.

“They’ve been receptive in the past,” Ready said.

The Forest Service is working with a number of partners in preparation for the gathering, Ready said, including the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, which has an interest in the area as part of the tribes’ ceded territory.

Chuck Sams, spokesman for the CTUIR, said the Rainbow Family did reach out to the tribal Department of Natural Resources as early as March, when members were scouting locations for the 2017 gathering.

At the time, Sams said the scouts proposed seven possible locations, including Flagtail Meadow — two on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, one on the Umatilla National Forest, three on the Malheur National Forest and one on the Ochoco National Forest.

The tribes spent months evaluating each location, Sams said, analyzing impacts to water quality and quantity, native fish, traditional plants and the possibility of ground disturbances at former village and burial sites.

On June 12, the CTUIR concluded that all of the sites were a high risk for damage.

“As for the proposed locations within the CTUIR’s ceded territory, given the potential impacts to both renewable and non-renewable resources, we would respectfully request that your gathering be held elsewhere,” the tribes said in its formal response.

Sams said the Rainbow Family members also asked tribal officials to bless the gathering, which the tribes declined.

“We can’t do that in good faith,” Sams said. “There just aren’t currently any facilities in any of those reaches they proposed that could deal with that many people.”

Sams said the tribes will continue to work closely with the Forest Service, which has jurisdiction over the area. Ready said they will have an incident command team on hand to deal with any problems that arise, and enforce the guidelines of the operating plan.

The incident command team will include roughly 25 law enforcement officers brought in to assist the Grant County Sheriff’s Department and Oregon State Police. Other staff will take charge of things like logistics, planning and fire hazard mitigation.

“You’re talking about a massive group,” Ready said. “We’re doing everything we can in the preliminary stages.”

Sams said the primary concern among the tribes is the protection of natural resources related to cultural sites and first foods.

“We just want people to be respectful and good stewards of the landscape,” Sams said.

[educatedindian]

Bold is mine.

http://www.bluemountaineagle.com/Local_News/20170706/two-men-who-died-at-rainbow-gathering-identified
Two men have died so far at the Rainbow Gathering.

George Ernest Rogers III, 43, of Dumas, Texas, and William Pasko, 74, of Takoma Park, Maryland, are the only deaths reported so far at the annual gathering taking place this year on the Malheur National Forest, Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer said Thursday afternoon.

Rogers collapsed near a makeshift medical station at the gathering July 2, Palmer said. An emergency room doctor from Kentucky who was attending the gathering provided medical treatment, and CPR was attempted for 15-20 minutes without success.

The man’s identity was unknown, so fingerprints were sent to the Oregon State Police Identification Bureau. The FBI notified the sheriff’s office of the identity of the body late Monday evening.

To notify his family, Palmer tracked down leads from Texas, California, Alaska and Colorado. The family was notified the morning of July 5.

Palmer said he was unaware of the cause of death. Grant County Medical Examiner Dr. Raffaella Betza could not be reached for comment.

Pasko died of natural causes from a heart attack July 3, Palmer said. A doctor from California provided treatment at the gathering.

These have been the only deaths reported at the gathering so far, and Palmer said he hoped they were the last. He said, however, Forest Service officials warned bodies may be found in tents as the gathering winds down.

“They typically find a couple after the fact,” he said. “Everything they’ve told us so far has happened.”

[educatedindian]

http://m.topix.com/forum/city/salt-lake-city-ut/T49IMLOTL3ROE66OL

RFIS
Jul 4, 2014
Drug smuggling by Rainbow Family members at 2014 gathering leads to investigation.
At the Rainbow Family Gathering in Heber City, Utah in July 2014, undercover federal agents were observed dressed as Rainbow Family members. They were quietly taking photos of many of the thousands of people in attendance. The revelation comes as several drug smuggling routes used by Rainbow Family members to distribute felony-grade drugs nationwide have been uncovered by federal investigators.

According to sources, Rainbow Family members have been acting as “drug mules” for larger drug smuggling operations based in Central and South America. The Rainbow Family members transport drugs across the Texas border and distribute the drugs to around 75 drug dealers who use the annual Rainbow Family Gathering to meet and plan drug selling and transportation for the following year.

Regional Rainbow Family Gatherings held during the year in the United States are meeting points for drug purchasers to pick up illegal drugs which are then used and distributed into smaller communities.

While law enforcement officials at the 2014 Rainbow Family Gathering were enforcing the law at the campsite, several Rainbow Family members were observed via satellite and GPS tracking making several stops to storage units in the Salt Lake City area before attending the gathering.

Many Rainbow Family Members have commented in recent years that the annual gathering is more focused on hard drug usage than on creating peace and healing the Earth. Many Rainbow Family members have stayed home this year and not attended the gathering in Utah, because the gathering no longer lives up to the Rainbow Family’s original ideals.

A federal database of Rainbow Family members is being compiled right now. Every time a Rainbow Family member is arrested at a gathering (local or national), their biometrics data (facial recognition and fingerprints) are entered into a sub-database at the FBI to track Rainbow Family members who are likely selling and transporting drugs for Central and South American drug cartels. Utah is already contemplating filing drug smuggling charges against 52 attendees of this year’s gathering. But it is more likely that federal charges will be filed against several hundred Rainbow Family members later this year for felony possession and smuggling of drugs. If a coordinated effort to smuggle drugs into the country is uncovered, the government could have the legal standing to ban further Rainbow Family Gatherings from occurring in the national forests.

------
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865606531/More-charges-filed-as-Rainbow-Family-leaves-Utah.html
HEBER CITY — Rainbow Family members may be filtering out of the Heber Valley after the Friday peak of their annual gathering, but Wasatch County authorities say some of them continue to get into trouble with the law.

At its height, an estimated 8,000 members of the Rainbow Family of Living Light attended the counterculture group's annual gathering, Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest spokewoman Kathy Jo Pollock said.

By Monday, about 80 percent of the attendees had left the gathering site 15 miles east of Heber, Pollock said.

That same day, prosecutors filed separate felony cases against Rainbow Family members Sampson A. Carpenter and Aaron B. Akin.

Carpenter is charged in 4th District Court with aggravated assault, a third-degree felony. The 35-year-old from Cosby, Tennessee, was asked to stop interrupting an "om circle" at the gathering site Saturday and responded by hitting a man with a 5-foot-long wooden pole, according to court records. A doctor told investigators the blow fractured one of the victim's ribs.

Akin, 26, is charged with three counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a third-degree felony. He also faces a pair of misdemeanor drug-related charges.

The Seattle man's minivan was stopped Saturday when a Wasatch County sheriff's deputy saw Akin leaning out the driver's window with both hands out the window as well while driving down a winding mountain road.

"(He) appeared not to have control of the vehicle," charging documents state.

The deputy said he could smell the odor of marijuana and asked Akin about it. Akin — whom the deputy noted was "speaking very quickly" while "frantically searching for something" — replied that he had a prescription for medical marijuana but had not smoked the drug that day, the charges state.

A search of Akin's van turned up marijuana, cocaine, hashish and drug paraphernalia that tested positive for marijuana and methamphetamine, court records state. The deputy said he also found digital scales and small plastic bags used to package drugs for distribution.

Carpenter and Akin were both booked into the Wasatch County Jail, as was Travis E. Churchill, who was arrested Monday following an incident in the parking lot outside Wal-Mart Supercenter, 1274 S. U.S. 189.

Churchill, 30, asked a woman for money while panhandling outside the store and then followed her around the parking lot when she turned him down, Heber City police officer Salvador Segura said.

"It got to the point that she feared for her safety and called 911," Segura said, adding that Churchill, who is from Truckee, California, fought with the officer who arrived to handle the call.

On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Churchill with assault on a police officer, a third-degree felony, and disorderly conduct, a class C misdemeanor. The assault charge, typically filed as a class A misdemeanor, was enhanced to a felony because Churchill has a prior conviction in Nevada for assaulting a police officer, Segura said.

The Rainbow Family of Living Light is heralded on the group's unofficial website as the "largest non-organization of non-members in the world."

"It's safe to say we're into intentional community building, nonviolence and alternative lifestyles," the website's main page states. "We also believe that peace and love are a great thing, and there isn't enough of that in this world."

The group gathers annually around July 4 in a different National Forest to pray for world peace. This year's visit to the Uinta National Forest proved to be a burden on local law enforcement and the courts, Wasatch County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jared Rigby said.

Since the buildup to the July 1-7 gathering began in mid-June, authorities in Wasatch County have investigated two unattended deaths, multiple drug overdoses, an attempted murder, an attempted robbery and numerous felony drug offenses, Rigby said.

Eighty-seven people connected to the gathering have been booked into the 100-bed county jail since June 16, the chief deputy said.

[educatedindian]

https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1974
In July 1980, the Rainbow Family held its annual reunion in Monongahela National Forest, at Three Forks of the Williams River in Webster County. News of the reunion provoked strong reactions, soon overshadowed by two murders associated with the event.

The Rainbow Family, a loosely organized group whose main activity is its annual reunion, has been variously characterized as hippies and drifters or as peaceful nature lovers and ecologists. The annual gatherings grew out of social, political, and cultural movements that had gained popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s. Included in these movements were back-to-the-landers, people who sought to return to a simpler, self-sustaining way of life; anti-war protesters; and hippies. In 1970, recognizing their common approach to life, they decided to stage a yearly event. The name ‘‘rainbow’’ was chosen to signify the diversity of people involved. The first gathering, in 1972, was near Aspen, Colorado, in the Roosevelt National Forest and on private land.

In the month before the West Virginia event, Secretary of State A. James Manchin and a group of Marlinton residents filed suit in federal court to bar the Rainbow Family from having its reunion in the Monongahela National Forest. At the time, Manchin was quoted in news reports as saying that West Virginia didn’t need ‘‘this bunch of derelict misfits.’’ Manchin also asked the U.S. Forest Service to withdraw the group’s camping permit. The federal court suit was dropped before the reunion started.

An estimated 6,000 people attended West Virginia’s Rainbow Gathering. For decades afterwards, tragic events associated with the 1980 gathering continued to make news. On June 25, 1980, two women who were apparently hitchhiking to the reunion were murdered on Droop Mountain, in southern Pocahontas County. On June 4, 1993, Jacob Beard, a Pocahontas County native, was convicted of killing the two women, Nancy Santomero, 26, of Huntington, Long Island, New York, and Vicki Durian, 26, of Wellman, Iowa. Beard’s conviction was overturned in 1999, and he was acquitted of the murders after his second trial on May 31, 2000.

Jacob Beard later filed a wrongful conviction suit, and Pocahontas County agreed to a $2 million settlement in January 2003. Beard’s release and second trial were in part the result of a 1997 confession to the murders by Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist and serial killer. Franklin, whose confession in the Rainbow murders was challenged by some law enforcement offcials, was executed in Missouri in November 2013 for an unrelated murder.

The Rainbow Family returned to West Virginia for a gathering in the Monongahela National Forest in 2005. The 2005 event was fairly uneventful except for a dispute between members of the Rainbow Family and the Forest Service over the agency’s requirement that the group obtain permits before congregating in the national forest.

----------
http://www.apalachtimes.com/1.448998
Murder darkens Rainbow Gathering By David Adlerstein
Posted Mar 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM Updated Mar 11, 2015 at 8:52 AM
     
A planned month-long Rainbow Gathering in the Apalachicola National Forest, the eighth such get-together of peace-loving vagabonds in as many years, was cut short violently in the early morning of March 5, when a simmering feud beside a campfire erupted in gunfire.
According to reports by eyewitnesses, 39-year-old Clark Mayers, 39, of Milledgeville, Georgia, angry the video camera he was using to record people burning tires was slapped from his hand into the flames, walked to his car, returned with a pistol and fired three shots into 24-year-old Wesley Jones, who goes by the name Dice.
Chris Ward, a Leesburg pastor who has ministered to Rainbow gatherings in the Ocala and Apalachicola national forests for the past 20 years, said Dice was shot three times in the back, lung, and spine, and remains paralyzed, in critical but stable condition, at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.
A second Rainbow participant known as Smiley, Jacob Cardwell, from Golden Valley, Arizona, believed to be in his late 20s, then tried to calm the shooter, and was shot twice in the head, mortally wounded.
Capt. Chester Creamer, of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, who confirmed the shooter’s identity Monday, said Mayers was then beaten and stabbed repeatedly by some within the Rainbow gathering, and detained until sheriff’s deputies arrived at about 3:09 a.m., about 39 minutes after the initial 911 call. One reason for the response time was spotty cellphone reception in the area, and the remote spot near a boat landing at the end of Wright Lake Road, two miles south of Sumatra, where the gathering of about 300 to 350 was set to formally begin Saturday.

....He said at least a half-dozen eyewitness cooperated with investigators, for whom it took a few days to confirm each of the identities of the people involved. “These folks don’t have a lot of documentation on them,” Creamer said. “We have to do a lot of legwork on that.....

[educatedindian]

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/crime-and-courts/4491703-man-charged-assault-rainbow-gathering
Man charged with assault at Rainbow Gathering
A Northfield, Minn., man was charged with assault after he allegedly tried to strangle a woman and bite off part of a man's finger during a Rainbow Gathering in the Superior National Forest.
Written By: Lisa L. Kaczke | Aug 28th 2018 - 4pm.

Spencer R. Fredrickson, 20, was charged Tuesday in State District Court with first-degree assault and fourth-degree assault on a peace officer. The maximum sentence for first-degree assault is 20 years and/or a $30,000 fine. Fredrickson's next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 13.

Fredrickson is being held in the Cook County Jail on $200,000 bail. Both assault victims were treated and released from the North Shore Health Hospital in Grand Marais, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Office.

According to the criminal complaint:

A woman told a Cook County sheriff's deputy she was assaulted at a Rainbow Gathering at Trout Lake Road on Saturday night. When the group attempted to pull Fredrickson off the woman, he allegedly bit off part of the finger of a man who goes by "Satellite." Fredrickson admitted to law enforcement that he had been under the influence of drugs and couldn't recall how the events unfolded, but denied that he caused any harm.

The incident began when the woman allegedly saw Fredrickson going through vehicles in the parking lot and saw him get into the vehicle where someone was collecting camping items from the vehicle, causing the person to scream the gathering's emergency safe word.

Fredrickson ran off into the woods, the complaint said. The woman told the deputy that she followed him into the woods and heard him crying. She tried to calm him down by offering him a hug and told him that whatever drugs he took would wear off, but Fredrickson started groping her. She said she told him that type of contact was unwanted.

Fredrickson then allegedly grabbed her by the throat and began to strangle her. She told authorities she couldn't yell for help because she couldn't breathe, but he let go of her throat long enough for her to scream for help. He then allegedly grabbed her bottom and top jaws by putting his fingers in her mouth and she said he started "pulling her face apart as hard as he could." She said she felt like he was trying to kill her.

A group of people attempted to pull Fredrickson off her and during the struggle, he bit off part of Satellite's finger, the complaint said. The woman said Fredrickson was showing "superhuman strength." The group put duct tape on Fredrickson to subdue him until law enforcement arrived.

A Cook County sheriff's deputy arrived on scene. Fredrickson was squeezing his hands together to cut off circulation. While the deputy was holding Fredrickson's hands to prevent that, Fredrickson began squeezing the deputy's hands and dug his fingernails through the deputy's gloves, breaking his skin.

Fredrickson admitted to law enforcement that he was using LSA, LSD and morning glory seeds and he was unclear about how the events of the night had unfolded. He told law enforcement that he doesn't know the woman and denied causing harm to anyone....

[educatedindian]

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-time/joseph-capshaw-rainbow-family-gathering-murder
They Met At A Rainbow Family Gathering In The Woods. Then He Blacked Out And Brutally Killed Her, He Allegedly Told Cops
"The attack was so brutal," said one cop. "I've never seen anything like it in 10 years of law enforcement."

BY WILL HUNTSBERRY

Every year since 1972, the Rainbow Family has held unofficial gatherings in national forests dedicated to peaceful, communal living. The hazard and the glory of such radical tolerance is that everyone is allowed inside.

20-year-old Joseph Bryan Capstraw—who is charged with first-degree murder for savagely beating to death 18-year-old Amber Robinson who he met at the gathering, cops say—represented the hazard.

The Rainbow Family is an unorganized collective of misfits that sprang out of 1960s hippie culture. Rainbows, as they are called, often travel in caravans and intermittently meet up for happenings, both small and large. Roughly 4,500 people showed up for this year’s annual gathering in the Chattahoochee National Forest in north Georgia, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

That is where Capstraw—who had previously been living on the streets of Florida, according to WTLV-TV in Jacksonville—met Robinson.

Capstraw’s relationship to Robinson is unclear, but as the gathering ended around July 5, they decided to travel together. They hitchhiked north, up Interstate 65 through Tennessee and into Kentucky.

A man from Elizabethtown, Kentucky picked them up somewhere south of town, a police officer told Oxygen.com. He even invited them to stay in his home for the night “out of the kindness of his heart,” said John Thomas of the Elizabethtown Police Department.

The man apparently left later that evening. He was still not back home, when around 2 a.m. a neighbor called cops about a suspicious person in the area, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Oxygen.com.

Cops found him outside the house, bloody and asking to be taken to a hospital. He said, “I killed her,” and then led them inside the house, the complaint states.

What first responders found inside is still troubling them, officer Thomas said. Robinson had been severely beaten in the face and had strangulation marks on her neck, according to the complaint.

“The attack was so brutal, her face was totally destroyed,” he said. “I've never seen anything like it in 10 years of law enforcement.”

Aside from admitting to the attack, Capstraw could shed little light on the events, cops say. He told them that he and the woman had gotten into a verbal fight and then he blacked out. When he came to he found the woman dead and his hands with multiple injuries, the complaint states.

Cops identified Robinson as the victim Thursday after an extensive social media outreach campaign to people who had attended the festival, Thomas said. The condition of her body made the process more difficult, he added.

Robinson was originally from Florida, but it is still unknown where she was living prior to the gathering, Thomas said.

Capstraw had other brushes with violence. He was charged with attempted murder in May of last year for cutting another homeless man on the chest and neck in Jacksonville, according to court documents obtained by WTLV-TV. Witnesses said Capstraw acted in self-defense and a court found him not guilty.

The majority of infractions at any given Rainbow gathering are minor. Cops arrested 28 people and issued 900 citations at this year’s gathering, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta. But chaotic undercurrents have also darkened the vibes in recent years.

A 20-year-old is still missing after this year’s festival, according to WXIA-TV in Atlanta. At the 2014 gathering in Utah, a woman the Rainbows nicknamed “Hitler” allegedly stabbed a man, according to KSTU-TV in Salt Lake City. And at the 2015 gathering in Florida, a man who was angry that people were burning tires shot two men, killing one known as “Smiley,” according to the Apalachicola Times.

"There's been a crystal meth problem, a crack problem, a homeless problem," Michael Niman, who has written about the Rainbow Family, told Vice in 2014. Niman stressed that reports of violence at the gatherings have been exaggerated. But, he said, "You'll start seeing kids from nearby cities—they have no place else to go, so they'll show up at the Rainbow Gatherings."

[Sparks]

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-time/joseph-capshaw-rainbow-family-gathering-murder
They Met At A Rainbow Family Gathering In The Woods. Then He Blacked Out And Brutally Killed Her, He Allegedly Told Cops

That story is dated July 12, 2018. For the 2019 Gathering, see:

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=5382.0 [Rainbow Gathering in Wisconsin] (2019)

[educatedindian]

In July.

-------
https://lmtribune.com/northwest/updated-rainbow-gathering-not-sitting-well-with-some/article_94b20a00-b6b6-5b56-b780-8f2fc9a7452b.html?fbclid=IwAR0Rhuxot3kwNilY0rSy97bc20FBekSU7CKWjC6MWK79CGAUD00aswvDP9M
UPDATED: Rainbow Gathering not sitting well with some
Nez Perce Tribe and some longtime Rainbow members object to this year’s communal campout north of Riggins
By Eric Barker of the Tribune Jul 2, 2020 Updated Jul 2, 2020

UPDATE: A U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman confirmed this morning there are armed individuals in the vicinity of the Rainbow Gathering camp.

“They are driving around on their four-wheelers and making a presence,” said Julie Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service incident command team managing the gathering.

The agency had earlier said rumors of armed, militia-like entities around the site were unconfirmed.

A counterculture gathering on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest intended to celebrate peace and inclusion is instead sowing the seeds of discord and division.

By one estimate, as many as 500 people have congregated at Iron Phone Junction near the top of the ridge that divides the Snake and Salmon rivers north of Riggins to take part in the annual Rainbow Gathering. The communal campouts that are held at a different spot each year can attract as many as 10,000 people, and feature a mass prayer for world peace July 4.

But the latest rendition is rife with controversy. Many members of the loose-knit Rainbow Family of Living Light are boycotting this gathering and trying to persuade others to do the same because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The point of the gathering is for people to connect with each other and be close and share space and hug each other and sit in circles, and those things just don’t work with COVID-19,” said Karin Zirk, a longtime participant from San Diego who is part of the no-gather faction.

Those moving forward with the event have angered the Nez Perce Tribe and its members, who fear campers will damage edible and medicinal plants at the site, harm wildlife habitat and even disturb unmarked graves of their ancestors.

“I let them know there is a lot of people who are angry and want to go up there and confront them,” said Anthony Capetillo, a member of the tribe who has been to the site.

Layered on top of that is the rumored but unconfirmed presence of armed, militia-like individuals patrolling the area. It all adds up to what could be a volatile Fourth of July weekend.

In an attempt to manage the event, the U.S. Forest Service has deployed an incident command team consisting of many law enforcement agents who are assigned the duty every year. On Wednesday, Cheryl Probert, supervisor of the 4 million acre forest, closed the Cow Creek Road near Lucile, cutting off one of the main routes into the area. The 241 Road in the Race Creek drainage remains open. Agency spokeswoman Julie Thomas said social media reports about armed people patrolling appear unfounded.

“I think that is just a rumor,” she said. “No one has confirmed that with me.”

Capetillo is leading a small group of tribal members calling themselves the Nez Perce Defenders who have met with the campers and attempted to persuade them to leave for another site. He said the campers don’t appear to be following the latest health protocols and have dug six latrines, constructed about 40 fire pits, cut down live trees and dammed a small stream.

Although he said some campers are sympathetic to the tribe’s concerns, others are not and have instead said they are being victimized by being asked to relocate. The discussions have turned heated at times, and Capetillo said he feels the tribe is being disrespected.

“We just feel like we are being taken advantage of. We feel like we are being oppressed and colonized all over again,” he said. “I started this group so I could come out here and let people know these are our concerns. We brought salmon, we brought elk and deer burgers. We tried everything we could to be peaceful and met with them three or four times. Every time it fell on deaf ears.”

Capetillo is working with members of the Rainbow community who are staying away and participates in regular phone conference calls with the “om from home” faction. Some have donated money to his cause, which he is using in part to help campers who agree to leave with expenses, such as gas money.

Donald Joseph Arceneau is a longtime participant in the Rainbow community who is staying home this year. He spends much of his time in Moscow and lives in rural Benewah County. Since he is close, he agreed to visit the site Sunday on behalf of concerned members of the no-gather faction.

“I was the only one wearing a mask. The campers weren’t social distancing. I don’t think they were practicing the hygiene we normally do at gatherings,” he said.

The lapse in hygiene he witnessed may be because many of the most experienced in the community are not attending, said Gary Stubbs, of Napa, Calif.

“A lot of the infrastructure — the folks who make things happen — just decided it was unsafe and irresponsible to have a gathering during a pandemic,” he said.

Zirk, who maintains a blog on the gatherings, said 90 percent or more of longtime participants are staying home. She said the strife with the Nez Perce people is likely because many of the most experienced gatherers, those who scout locations and communicate with local tribes and governments, are not participating. Instead the effort is being led by people with much less experience.

Arceneau said that the diplomatic process started prior to the onset of the pandemic but was later abandoned when most family members decided not to gather this year.

Both he and Capetillo estimated the size of the encampment at less than 200 people....

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https://nezperce.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Statement-from-Nez-Perce-Tribe-Executive-Committee-final.pdf
Statement from Nez Perce Tribe Executive Committee (NPTEC) on behalf of the Nez Perce Tribe to the Rainbow Family of Living Light regarding Annual Gathering

The Nez Perce Tribe and its members have several concerns regarding the Rainbow Family of Living Light and their Annual Gathering to be held July 2020 or July 2021 on or near our reservation or within our usual and accustomed homeland.

Concerns specifically regarding Covid-19

? There is already a shortage of certain foods, medical supplies, and cleaning supplies here and throughout Idaho due to Covid-19.

? There is no guarantee that people coming in from other States or even from other areas of Idaho are not carriers of Covid-19. Many people carrying this virus are asymptomatic. Therefore, a gathering could become dangerous for the citizens of our reservation with a simple trip to the grocery store by one member of the Rainbow Family gathering.

? The lack of kitchen and medical staff on hand at the gathering and what this might mean for a possible outbreak of Covid-19 at the campsite and potential spread to residents that live on the reservation.

? Overall impact on local community healthcare facilities if there is an outbreak of Covid-19 at the Gathering.

Cultural concerns of a large gathering:
? Packer Meadow is an important cultural place with both historical and present-day relevance to the Nez Perce people. As a long-standing location for gathering camas, it is one of the ‘usual and accustomed’ places whose use is guaranteed by the provisions of the 1855 treaty.

? There are numerous culturally-significant areas and archaeological sites on or near the NezPerce Clearwater National Forests. A large gathering could harm or destroy these sensitive and irreplaceable places and objects.

? There is potential for impacts to soil, water quality, threatened and endangered plants and animals, and other resource impacts caused by large gatherings and/or poor sanitation conditions.

? Packer Meadow is a high elevation meadow with a short growing season. This is but one of the reasons it is particularly sensitive to disturbance.

? Packer Meadow has a unique plant community which has survived to the present day largely because of its comparatively remote location and because of limited disturbance.

? Packer Meadow is under consideration as a ‘federally designated Special Botanical Area’.

? Because of the hydrology that creates the meadow, the water table is close to the surface and can be easily contaminated by both surface sources and by the proposed ‘latrine’ to be built on site. The Lolo Pass Visitor Center contends with crawl-space flooding, septic impacts, and subsidence every year because of the proximity of the water table to the surface.

? A ‘latrine’ would intercept the water table and will pose a threat to the water quality of Pack Creek, and to ESA listed Steelhead and other aquatic species living there.

? The high value of Pack Creek has made it a focal point for the Nez Perce Tribe’s Watershed Restoration program with millions of dollars spent to replace barrier culverts and restore legacy road systems to reduce sediment and protect water quality.

? The meadow has unique soils, which can be easily compacted, particularly this early in the year while they are still wet. Even the limited number of ‘user created’ trails that are currently present in the meadow pose a threat to the vegetation there.

? Compacted meadow soils will have a profound effect on camas germination and
productivity.

? The gathering will bring people from across the country, and potentially from around the world. The possibility of someone introducing invasive species is almost assured, and with such a large number of people using so much of the meadow complex, it would be nearly impossible to locate any new invaders until they were well established.

? Treatment of invasive species will be difficult. The Nez Perce Tribe has worked to control invasive species within the meadow and along the road for nearly fifteen years. We have been able to control most species without the use of herbicides, but establishment of new invaders within the meadow itself would force us to make hard decisions about chemical treatment in an important cultural resource.

*The Rainbow Family of Living Light did not reach out to the Nez Perce Tribe Executive Committee for permission to hold the annual gathering on or near our Tribe’s territory.

[educatedindian]

https://nbcmontana.com/archive/rainbow-family-fears-release-date-of-child-molester
Rainbow Family Fears Release Date Of Child Molester
by KECI BylineThursday, May 24th 2012

MISSOULA, Mont. - A 51-year-old man has confessed to choking 6-year-old [name redacted] in New York in 1979. A conviction could play a role in whether a different long-time suspect, a man who molested a young boy at a Rainbow Gathering, will be released from prison soon.

Barry Adams is a Missoula community activist and a leader in the Rainbow Family Gatherings, but what happened at a gathering in Pennsylvania in 1986 changed his life.

Adams says he helped prosecutors convict Jose Antonio Ramos for molesting an 8-year-old boy at the gathering.

Ramos is almost done serving time. He'll likely go free this year. Adams worries Ramos will molest other children. "Ramos, I do not believe, is someone who could ever be safe around children, even for his whole life."

In 2004, a judge pointed the finger at Ramos for the disappearance of Patz in 1979. Ramos reportedly admitted that he'd tried to molest Etan the day he disappeared, but denied hurting the boy. The case closed until two recent developments. Adams fears if Ramos is no longer a prime suspect in the Etan Patz case, he will be released back into the public.

Adams says many questions surround Ramos. "How was he able to go around the country for so many years, driving in a bus, being arrested a number of times, being charged with lesser degree crimes each time and then be released? How does that happen? It's for the generations of young-ins, and for the very young-ins that he abused so many years ago. They have been harmed. If nothing else, I believe totally that they deserve to know all the answers.

[educatedindian]

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-04-rainbow-family-clash_N.htm

5 arrested in Rainbow Family clash with feds
Updated  | Comment  | Recommend   
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — About 400 members of the Rainbow Family threw rocks and sticks at 10 federal officers as they tried to arrest a member of the group, the U.S. Forest Service said Friday.
Five members of the group were arrested and one officer was slightly injured. A government vehicle was also damaged.

About 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family are camping this year on Forest Service land near Big Sandy. The Rainbow Family is a loose affiliation of eccentrics, young people and hippie types who choose a forest each year in which hold a week-long national gathering.

Ten Forest Service officers were patrolling the main meadow of the Rainbow Family's camping area Thursday night and apprehended one person described as being uncooperative, Rita Vollmer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, said in a statement Friday.

"Officers began to leave the gathering site with the subject and were circled by more Rainbow participants that began to physically interfere," Vollmer said.

About 400 Rainbows surrounded the officers trying to leave, she said.

"The mob began to advance, throwing sticks and rocks at the officers," Vollmer said.

Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, said Friday that more officers arrived to help. Officers fired "pepper balls" — similar to paint balls but containing a pepper solution — to control the crowd, she said.

State troopers have also arrested two people this week on felony drug charges for allegedly possessing 96 hits of LSD, said Sgt. Stephen Townsend of the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

The Rainbows and federal officers have clashed repeatedly in years past, and the Forest Service in 1998 established a national response team to deal with the group. Officials have complained that the gathering can ruin forests, with the group saying members clean up and reseed afterward.