Confrontation at Grizzly Creek (II)

by Nicholas Wilson

On October 8, the second day of the police assault on the Earth First! barricade, 13 members of the public were arrested, three of them civil rights observers charged with unlawful assembly and failure to disperse. Pepper spray was again used, this time three applications on one woman over about 30 minutes; despite the searing pain, she refused to comply with police orders and release herself from the "lockdown" device.

Deputies arrived about 8AM and soon parked a row of police vans bumper to bumper, blocking the view between protesters and observers. They placed a blue tarp where it made it harder to see under or around the vehicles. Observers and media were ordered to stay on the other side of the two-lane highway. One observer said the deputies were attempting to create a "witness exclusion zone." As a cold rain began to fall, officers pulled ground pads from under the prone activists and rain covers from over them.

After about an hour observers could see battle-garbed police leaning over Carrie "Liz" McKee, 20, the youngest of the three women in the human chain.

According to Alicia Littletree who had a closeup view as a participant in the lockdown, deputies first threatened everyone in the chain with pepper spray unless they unlocked, and they emphasized how much it would hurt in an attempt to frighten them into compliance.

She thought officers chose to start with McKee because she was frightened and sobbing in anticipation.

Wearing military style fatigues, black combat boots, and white latex surgical gloves Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Wayne Hanson knelt next to McKee. He sprayed a stream of caustic pepper spray into a cup, then dipped a gauze pad into it and swabbed it across her closed eyelids. She drew her knees up into the fetal position, rocked from side to side and chanted loudly to help herself bear the pain. Her reaction could be seen and photographed by some of the observers across the highway. She later told the Monitor, "It felt like my face was on fire; it was burning and stinging really, really bad. I couldn't breath at first because of the chemical and panic; I was struggling to calm down and try to breath normally and transcend the pain."