Road Rage At Rally Crowd Protesting Closure Howls After Finding Federal Officers

The discovery of three plainclothes Forest Service cops - one of them operating a video camera - threatened to turn a road rally into an anti-government riot near the Canadian border Saturday.

Jeers of “tyranny” erupted soon after one man warned the crowd of about 100 that federal agents were probably photographing participants.

That led to demands that any agents identify themselves, and worries that license plate numbers and faces were being recorded.

One Forest Service officer admitted he was packing a gun as well as a video camera.

“They’re armed! They’re armed!” telegraphed through the crowd.

“Who’s the weapon for?” demanded Shane Witcher of Sandpoint.

“Ashamed to wear the uniform of your boss?” another person mocked.

Boundary County commissioners, who organized the protest, had to call for calm.

“We don’t want unrest and anger here,” Commissioner Kevin Lederhos said. “We were guaranteed there would be no uniformed Forest Service personnel here.

“If we can win in court, we can make a big difference opening roads all over the United States,” he said.

“Isn’t that the court Lon Horiuchi was supposed to be tried in?” Witcher snapped, throwing down a shovel he was leaning on in disgust.

Horiuchi is an FBI sniper who Boundary County Prosecutor Denise Woodbury charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge. She was the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver, the man at the center of the 1992 standoff.

A federal judge ruled Horiuchi is immune from prosecution because he was carrying out his duties as a federal agent.

After tempers started smoking on Saturday, Commission Chairman Merle Dinning quickly suggested adjourning to a fishing hole. The crowd thinned, but some people stayed to argue with members of Earth First! who parked their van near the disputed Boundary Creek Road gate long before anyone else showed up.

Saturday morning’s gathering was designed to protest last year’s closure of Boundary Creek Road by the Forest Service. Seven miles of the slide-prone road have soaked up $1million in maintenance funds and should be obliterated, the agency says.

County commissioners strongly disagree. They declared the road a public right of way Tuesday and threatened to send volunteer labor and equipment to bulldoze a route around the gate and fix the ailing byway.

The Forest Service countered by going to federal court for a restraining order that was granted Friday. The commissioners had a meeting at the road rather than defy the court order, although they were goaded by a few people to take a bulldozer to the gate.

“The only way to resolve this is to get on that Cat and go through the gate,” Tony Brown said.

Commissioners remained firm, saying federal court is the place to challenge the closure.

“If that fails, are you willing to come and take this by force?” one man asked.

“I’m not going to say that at this media conference,” Lederhos said.

State Rep. John Campbell, R-Sandpoint, and former governor Don Samuelson joined the commissioners at the gate in condemning the road closure.

“For whatever reason, they are shutting out the whole West,” Campbell said of the Forest Service. He accused the agency of plotting ways to get bull trout on the endangered species list as a way of closing roads and “keeping you out.”

Campbell told the crowd he would ask state Attorney General Al Lance to join the court battle to reopen the road.

Boundary County argues the road was built before 1906, when the area became national forest, and therefore has to remain open under old mining laws. “You have a very good case,” Campbell said.

Guy Patchen Sr. talked of learning to drive on this road in 1948, behind the wheel of a 1913 Buick pickup. His father worked for Idaho Continental Mine - a lead and silver lode that Boundary County folks contend the road was established for.

“Dad had fought with the Forest Service over this road for 40 years,” Patchen said.

He chided the Forest Service for sending agents to the gathering.

“If they could have got us in a fistfight today, they would have done it.”

Chuck Silvas, one of the Forest Service officers, said he was there with a video camera to document the gathering “for protection of people and the natural resources.”

He is routinely armed, he said, because he is a cop. And had anyone torn out the gate, he would have arrested them, he said.

One of the road-closure protestors walked to the Earth First! van blocking the Forest Service gate and ripped down signs declaring “There are already enough roads in the (Idaho Panhandle National Forests) to get to Florida. No More.”

The irony of environmental activists opposing the crowd’s proposed civil disobedience didn’t escape Earth First! member Jonathan Crowell of Moscow.

“But the whole fight might get clouded over with locals versus the federal government,” Crowell said. “It would be a shame for the challenge to the federal government to come at the expense of grizzlies, bull trout and caribou.”

COUNTY’S CLAIM Boundary County argues Boundary Creek Road was built before 1906, when the area became national forest, and therefore has to remain open under old mining laws. The Forest Service researched the county’s claim and found the road was built in 1913, seven years after the forest was established.