So far, one major violent episode has rocked the gathering of “Rainbow Family” participants who are congregating in Santa Fe National Forest for an annual event that peaks July 4.
Altie Drashner suffered a near-fatal stab wound June 22 when another camper, Shamus Woods, allegedly attacked him from behind and punctured his lung, according to State Police. Drashner, whose age and hometown haven’t been released, told police he was helping a group of women set up their camp in the Parque Venado area of Santa Fe National Forest, about 22 miles east of Cuba near the Sandoval-Rio Arriba County boundary, when a 6-foot-3-inch man with long hair approached him, and the two began to argue.
Drashner told police that when he turned his back on the man, later identified as Woods, 33, of San Diego, Calif., he felt a knife stabbing him in the back near his lungs, documents state. After he cried out, other Rainbow Family members carried Drashner up to State Road 70 where he was loaded into the back of a pickup truck to be taken for medical attention. His alleged assailant was also loaded in the truck, and Drashner noticed Woods had a stab wound to his hand.
Both men were driven to Cuba, where Drashner was airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, and Woods was driven there by ambulance, according to documents and State Police criminal agent Joey Gallegos. Hospital staff said Drashner was discharged from the hospital June 26.
Woods told police that the night of the incident he heard a fight break out and had no idea how his hand came to be wounded. After police interviewed Drashner they told Woods they didn’t believe his statement. In a second statement, Woods said Drashner was belligerent and drunk and got into a scuffle with him, during which time someone was hitting them with a stick. He still didn’t admit stabbing Drashner, and said police would find both of his knives in his tent.
Gallegos said Woods apparently accidentally stabbed himself.
Police only recovered one knife from Woods’ tent, and charged him with tampering with evidence, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and possession of drug paraphernalia. The last charge was related to a glass marijuana pipe officers allegedly found on Woods when he was taken into custody. Assistant District Attorney Tom Cruse later amended the charges to a single charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, saying a recent Court of Appeals opinion found that police can’t use the tampering with evidence charge just because they can’t find a weapon. Cruse said he didn’t see enough evidence for the paraphernalia charge.
Woods was being held at Rio Arriba County Jail on $15,000 bond.
Harassment?
Although the stabbing was the most serious incident, Woods is far from being the only Rainbow Family member who has run afoul of the law during this year’s gathering. As of Monday, National Forest Service law enforcement officers have issued 225 violation notices to campers, mostly for drug and alcohol offenses and traffic violations, Forest Service information officer Denise Ottaviano said. Family members appeared Monday en masse in state Federal Magistrate Court in Albuquerque to contest these violations, according to a Rainbow press release.
Most of the campers simply paid a fine, Ottaviano said. One man charged with possession of a firework chose to have a bench trial, was found guilty and was sentenced to eight hours of community service, Ottaviano said.
Two campers so far have been arrested and charged with assault on Forest Service law enforcement officers, Ottaviano said. The biggest drug seizure was of one pound of marijuana — the most prevalent drug seized at the gathering — but methamphetamine, heroin, hashish and psilocybin mushrooms have also been taken from campers, according to Ottaviano. One person overdosed on three separate occasions on a reported cocktail of drugs and had to be transported to the hospital.
“I heard LSD was one of them,” Ottaviano said. “But there’s no telling what all that person had ingested.”
Rainbow press releases complain that Forest Service officers are issuing citations that require a mandatory court appearance, requiring a 240-mile round trip drive from the gathering site to court in Albuquerque. Ottaviano confirmed that court appearance is mandatory for all citations issued at the gathering. This is done for the gatherers’ convenience, Ottaviano argued, because otherwise they would receive a notice to appear in court after they had returned to their home states and in some cases, countries. Ottaviano did not have an answer, however, for why the gatherers needed to appear in court at all for minor violations where they ultimately just paid a fine, as she agreed most of them did.
Another grievance the Rainbow press releases detail is the seemingly nit-picking nature of the citations being given, for such offenses as dirty license plate or failure to use a turn signal. Ottaviano said the estimated 5,000 campers currently at the site are overwhelming the narrow, winding dirt forest road, making small violations a major safety threat. In a Rainbow press release, attorney John McCall advises arriving campers to make sure not to have anything hanging from the car’s rear view mirror, to have all registration and insurance paperwork, and to use turn signals at all times.
“American citizens are being needlessly harassed at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars simply because they are exercising their First Amendment right to gather in the woods, pray for world peace and celebrate humanity,” McCall wrote.
McCall did not return calls for comment.
The U.S. Forest Service does not have a cost estimate yet for the amount it will spend enforcing laws at this year’s gathering, including putting together a 50-person incident management team made up of law enforcement officers from across the country. The Forest Service spent $340,628 on law enforcement at last year’s gathering in Wyoming cost, Ottaviano said.