CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union said Saturday that it plans to investigate the actions of federal law enforcers who arrested five Rainbow Family members in western Wyoming during their annual gathering.

The U.S. Forest Service says a mob of about 400 members of the Rainbow Family, a group of hippie types and eccentrics who camp on public land every year, threw rocks and sticks at Forest Service officers who tried to arrest a member of the group.

Up to 60 federal and local law enforcers responded, Forest Service officials say, and fired "pepper balls" - similar to paint balls but containing a pepper solution - at the crowd to control it.

As many as 7,000 members of the Rainbow Family camped out this year on Forest Service land near the Big Sandy Reservoir. The group holds a weeklong gathering on public land in a different area each year.

The Rainbows and federal officers have clashed before, and in 1998, the Forest Service established a national response team to deal with the group.

The ACLU plans to accept collect calls from Rainbow Family members for the next two weeks to hear their version of events, Linda Burt, executive director of Wyoming's ACLU, said Saturday.

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These morons camped out in my neck of the woods one year. Massive shoplifting in town, arrests for assault, selling drugs,etc, horrible damage to the areas they were camping in. I remember seeing a "before and after" comparison and they left the place a mess, trails that were 1'-2' wide were virtual roads 10'-15' wide after they left. These people have little to no repsect for the law, have repeatedly vviolated the very laws that the ACLU is whining about the local LE trying to investigate. Thier very presence is enough to justify LE investigating them and the ACLU is trying to say that w/o a complaint, the LE officers should have left them alone. Forget that!!! If they have a history of being a problem, the LE has a RESPONSIBILITY to be there. I'd expect no less from them if this was a gathering of "1%ers" Hell's Angels.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

The people in Utah didn't care much for them either. Same reason a lot of people were leery of the old hippies. They are filthy and shop lift and panhandle all the way to their destination. Then leave it for someone else to clean up after them.

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