Police strand children and elderly in wilderness, refuse to assist

On July 1 through July 7, campers in the Malheur national forest, Oregon, were left stranded in the wilderness when Federal Law Enforcement officers, in concert with the U.S. Forest Service, towed their vehicles while they were camping. When the campers returned to their parking spots, they found their vehicles missing and replaced with a "No Parking" sign. They then had to hike 5 or more miles to the nearest Law Enforcement officials to be rescued, but instead were told that their vehicles had been towed and they needed to go to 30 miles to the town to recover their vehicles from impound. When the campers asked for assistance getting to town, the Law Enforcement officers refused to help.

All of the campers had to perform a self-rescue. "I almost died in the middle of nowhere. Some good samaritans came along and gave me some water, and then later on some one stopped and gave me a ride to town." said one of the campers who wishes to remain anonymous. "When I got to my car, I was charged $325 to get it back and handed a ticket with a court date 1 day later. The ticket said 'Parked on shoulder, in violation of posted sign'. There wasn't a sign when I parked and I was 20 feet from the road, well off the shoulder. I've been camping in national forests for 30 years and never seen anything so outrageous"

Included among those left stranded were children and elderly persons. "I thought something bad happened to my dad. He left me with our camping gear to go get the car and didn't come back for 6 hours. I ran out of water and cried." said an 8 year old boy who wishes to remain anonymous.

Upon further investigation, it was revealed that there was a nearby assembly of people being targeted by the government for their political beliefs and the campers were assumed to be part of the group. "We saw hikers being stopped and frisked, cars pulled over and being searched... all the while the law enforcement officers ignored the stranded people, broken down vehicles, and traffic safety issues. They would just speed up and down the roads making as much dust as possible, ticketing cars, checking plates, etc."

It has been reported elsewhere that the U.S. Federal government set up a kangaroo court in the forest to rapidly dispatch cases for which defendants have as little as a few hours or days to receive notice and appear. When we called the U.S. District Court whose name was on the citation, they weren't aware of the citation and said it was highly unusual to have an accused person appear in court on such short notice.

The citations were written such that there was no option to mail in a payment. They specified the person must appear in court. This is also highly unusual because the officer writing the ticket has the option to have the accused just mail in a payment for any fine, which is the de facto standard for parking violations.

One of the officer's giving out these citations is named A. Henriche, #2173.