CHEYENNE — The American Civil Liberties Union plans to investigate how federal law enforcement officers treated members of the Rainbow Family during their annual gathering this year in western Wyoming.
Federal officers arrested five Rainbow Family members Thursday night. The U.S. Forest Service says the arrests occurred after a mob of perhaps 400 Rainbows threw rocks and sticks at 10 agency police officers after they tried to arrest one member of the group.
Scores of other officers responded, Forest Service officials say, and fired “pepper balls” at the crowd. Pepper balls are similar to paintballs, but hold a pepper solution that’s used for crowd control.
Up to 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family camped out this year on Forest Service land near Big Sandy. The group is a loose affiliation of people who hold a week-long national gathering on public land in a different area each year.
Linda Burt, executive director of the ACLU in Wyoming, said Saturday that her organization plans to accept collect calls from Rainbow Family members for the next two weeks to hear how law enforcement treated them.
Burt said she’s concerned about reports that officers have been ticketing Rainbow Family members for the smallest traffic infractions.
“I have some real concerns about how this is handled,” Burt said. “Particularly the pretext arrests — the idea that people are just cruising around looking for people to arrest when there have been no complaints and no reason for them to be there.
The Rainbows and federal officers have clashed repeatedly in years past.
