Dennis> There was am last fall, October, I believe it was there was an activist that was protesting in that same area named, "David Gypsy Chain" and killed by a tree falling. Do know very much about this incident or like to comment on this.

Julia> It was Sept. 17th. Sometime in the afternoon. Activist had been out in the area doing what is called monitoring. A lot of the time people and activist do the work of the agency. (Such as the Department of Forestry, Fish and Wild Life Service and the National Marine Fishery Service.) Because these agencies will turn a blind eye if they are showed the right amount of money or pushed by the right kind of power. So, instead of doing their job they often times they allow others to violate the laws that they are supposed to be enforcing or protecting.

Often the case Activist were out in the forest, and found what appeared to be very serious violation. They called the Dept. of Forestry, because we believe are serious. This timber-harvesting plan shouldn't be happening. The California Forestry, (which I call the California Dept. of Logging because they tend to do a lot more for the timber industry then they ever do for the forest or communities.) "Ah, okay they'll get to it." Well the Ca Dept of Forestry are famous for dragging there heals long enough for timber industries to take their 7' chainsaws and turn the forest into a clear-cut. Then they go out at the pressure of insistences of citizens and go oh yes there was a violation here and they site company for a violation and a couple of 1,000 and move on.

Even though the company has just violated the law, push species in to extinction, caused mudslides, and raped the forest, destroying people's lives as well, there given a few 1,000 even though they have extracted hundreds of thousands.

So basically for companies like Pacific Lumber Maxxam Corp. it is more profitable to break the law than to abide by the law. So activist are constantly out in the woods to doing the jobs of the agencies. And in this case they were in the area. Knowing that CDF would drag it heals activist went out in the area to try and slow down the logger and maybe, hopefully even get them to stop, by showing them the violations that they were enacting in the woods.

Activist do this many times, WE put our body on the line as a last source of defense as everything else is failing. We try to put our body's on line hoping that timber fall as an industry at least a little more respect human life as they none don't have it for the planet. But in this case the logger became in raged. A. E, Emms, and began casing the activist. It was caught on videotape. cussing them out threating there very lives. Saying he wish he had his gun on him cause then he take care of them. Then he is heard on the tape saying. "Get the blank out of the way"; talking to one of his fellow loggers I'm going start following the trees down into the draw. And the activist had run down into the gully, the draw that the logger was talking about. Because he was getting so violent and so intense they had run down there to try to regroup and decided what they were going to do.

One tree came smashing down extremely close to them, the jumped up and started screaming to let him know they all most killed them. He cut threw a second one in there direction. Every one of the 6 people were almost hit by the tree. Including one of mine that has been my friend for about 5 years, he said that he dove as fast as he could, and when he stood up after the tree had fallen he was covered in needles, twigs and branches because the tree come so close. And 5 out of the 6 activist stood up. The 6th one was David Gypsy Chain, who was hit by the tree and killed.

The logger and the timber company, Pacific Lumber Maxxam Corp. immediately began spinning there lies. Because Activist had caught them on videotape. Their lies were shown to the public and they began retracting their statements. They did that a total of 3 times. To me that's proof that they don't have a single ounce of respect for the planets life, but that they don't have a single ounce of respect for human life. Because if nothing else they could have just said nothing, but to disrespect some who just died, by spreading lies and rumors knowing that there lies is disrespect that still appalls me to this day and will make me sad and sick to my stomach forever. Because here was a young man 24 years old, giving up everything he knew in his life to come fight for the forest whose voice is only heard by humans. And the company decided to say things like, "Well I'm sorry he dead but he a trespasser."

As if death is appropriate response to some one walking on land belongs to the earth. A lot of energy was rallied around David Gypsy Chains death. His body is no longer with us, but his spirit, and his fire of commitment and passion lives on in everyone of the activist that knew him and everyone of the activist that come to this area to fight for the forest all feel his energy with us. Encouraging us to continue so that his death not be in vain.