No More Murders!! All Sentient Beings Welcome:
As of 2pm Saturday 9/19/98, here's the story as best I can tell it.
Pacific Lumber Company has for the last two weeks been clearcutting residual old growth in the Grizzly Creek drainage immediately north of Hwy 36, adjacent to Grizzly Creek State Park and the southern boundary of the Headwaters Forest acquisition area. The slopes are incredibly steep (in some areas over 65%) and there are Marbled Murrelet survey exclusion zones within the boundaries of the harvest plan. Because the slopes on the opposite side of the ridge, that had been logged similarly, were now an impassible mess of mudslides, it appeared likely that forest practice rules were being violated (a practice for which PL is infamous), and a CDF inspection was requested. When CDF repeatedly declined, a group of forest defenders from the Earth First! Action Training Camp decided on Thursday to go and see for themselves. Among them was David "Gypsy" Chain, 24, a capable, intelligent, and dedicated man in the prime of his life, most easily identified by the loving grin that rarely left his face.
Eureka press quoted PL president John Campbell as saying that loggers had been working all morning without any indication that there were protesters in the woods, and Gypsy's body was not found until long after the tree that killed him had been cut. But Ecotopia News footage from that morning (now released) clearly shows confrontations between the faller crew and about a dozen forest defenders, including one logger shouting, "I wish I had my fucking pistol...I guess I'll just start dropping trees on you." Minutes later the same logger cut the tree that fell on brother Gypsy, killing him instantly. When Gypsy's body was found, the loggers and Earth First!ers knelt together in prayer, and then the loggers went back to cutting trees. An all-night vigil was started at the action camp that evening.
Campbell also told the press that PL would not be logging in that plan on Friday, presumably to not interfere with the coroner's investigation. But on Friday morning, as the vigil moved from Williams Grove to the logging gate at the murder site, we arrived shortly after 6am, just minutes ahead of a log truck and faller crew attempting to get in and go to work. After we turned them back, we encountered the water truck, coming down out of the harvest plan with the roads nicely sprayed down. They'd had every intention of logging that day.
Later that morning the vigil was visited by Sherrif's deputy McAllister (who has always been gleefully up front about his animosity toward Earth First!), and PL Chief of Security Carl Anderson. We refused them access to the property and they left without contesting us. Later in the day, we did allow access to the Coroner and the (finally) CDF inspection crew. It seems understood at this point that Earth First! is in charge at Grizzly Creek. At 12:30 pm, we held a circle to mark 24 hrs. of Gypsy's passing, and reached consensus on staging a free state occupation.
For Gypsy's death, we hold responsible the outlaw Pacific Lumber Company and the complicit, rubber-stamping California Department of Forestry. The attitude of Free State occupants and the Earth First! community is one of openness, forgiveness, and emapthy for the logger, his family and the surrounding community. Still, all day Friday at the vigil site, local residents drove by shouting threats and obscenities (could you imagine us doing that at one of their funerals?!). On Friday night, a hostile mob of locals came and told those holding vigil to get lost or other people are going to get hurt. By Saturday morning, all of the action camp equipment had been moved to the landing in front of the logging road gate. The morning security shift did not get in. The land and parking areas on both sides of the highway are technically PL property.
WE STAY.
HOW TO HELP:
The media feeding frenzy has been everything you might imagine, so follow the stories but don't believe the hype.
Speak the truth to friends, neighbors, strangers-- Gypsy's gift to everyone is a new playing field, an opportunity for folks to discover where they stand, to show what matters in this life.
Gypsy Mountain Free State will need money, food, and physical plane support like tools, tarps, water containers, etc., and especially FOCUSED, NONVIOLENT SUPPORTERS to come out to HWY 36 and help us hold our ground. If you're worried about the heat but still want to come, Grizzly Creek State Park is open and within walking distance of the site.
UPCOMING EVENTS: (Now Past)
Berkeley, Sunday at noon, vigil at MLK Park
Mendocino, Monday, September 21, 6:30 pm Come to silent vigil, wearing black, to Crown Hall, in Mendocino village, where Sandy Dean, President of Mendocino Redwood Company, will be holding a public meeting to jive us all about MRC's "sustainable" logging of L-P lands.
Ukiah, Tuesday 5pm, vigil at the courthouse
Any day now, Charles Hurwitz takes the stand before the OTS hearings in Houston.
Humboldt County events tentative, I'll leave those out for now. For more Headwaters info, look at lunanews@humboldt1.com
In Solidarity,
Reverend fly Greenfield
BLACKBERRY HOUSE INFO CENTER
revfly@pacific.net