Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 13

With 15,000 additional people in the valley and only the narrow road serving it, I wanted to be sure there would be no blocking of the county road. One of the conditions to be met was to have a tow truck on site during the festival and ready if an accident should occur to remove any vehicles. I would not have my staff or other emergency personnel kept from going into the area for any reason.

I knew that when an official wanted to contact someone at the Ranch it could be very difficult. The Rajneesh made sure that people could be hard to find and deputies and other county officials would waste time trying to find them.

The Sheriff's Office was continually serving civil papers on the Commune, often being stone walled.

I understand they had over 150 separate corporations set up. The corporate offices were located in the office complex above the mall. Each corporation had a designated location within the office, for example one might be the top drawer of the fifth desk in the third row.

Then if no one was at the desk at the moment, the deputy had to wait until they came back. It was a game the Rajneesh enjoyed playing.

It was also difficult to get in touch with the Police Chief, a fact I had already found out. Therefore I also wanted the condition to include the Chief of Police would be available to me 24 hours a day during the festival and that she would return any and all of my calls within 20 minutes.

I told them I would not work with a reserve or a security person it HAD to be the Chief, who I knew would be there the entire time.

Because the population would increase the first part of June, when some followers would be coming in to attend various classes and then stay for the festival; and after the festival when other followers would be staying over to attend other classes, I requested a daily count of people coming onto the ranch beginning June 20th.

Someone from the Police Department was to call my office each morning by 8:00 am and give us a count. I had a good idea of just about when people would arrive, but the daily census would help confirm the population growth

Since the visitors had to travel through the county it allowed me to schedule personnel accordingly. It also gave me an indication of the numbers on the ranch at any given time.

There were other conditions concerning the safety of the visitors, etc. The last thing concerned the weaponry they had on the ranch.

For some time I had been told the Rajneesh had automatic weapons, there were even those that swore they saw a mounted machine gun on the helicopter that flew over the route that Bhagwan drove over every day.

I knew that ammunition for various weapons for the rest of Oregon was in short supply because some dealers had shipped truckloads of ammo to the ranch. Therefore, I also wanted the count and type of weapons available to them during the festival and how much ammo they possessed.

I ran the conditions by the District Attorney and informed the Commissioners I would like to present it to them during the next meeting as consideration for requirements for the permit.

I was on the agenda for the meeting.

I presented my list of conditions for my approval to the County Commissioners who in turn gave it to the Rajneesh. The Commissioners endorsed my list.

The Rajneesh challenged my standing as the Sheriff-elect and my right to make conditions since I was not the Sheriff. One of the commissioners pointed out that I would be taking office shortly, I would be the Sheriff during the festival, and therefore the conditions were to be met by the Rajneesh. They were not happy.

They were also told that the decision of whether to issue the permit was postponed until the new commissioner was sworn into office in a couple of weeks.

The Rajneesh were very upset. They wanted the permit approved NOW; in fact they were demanding it be approved right then. The commissioners were well within their rights to postpone the vote and didn't budge.

The Rajneesh were concerned because the new Commissioner had originally resigned his office when he had been advised to rule in favor of the Rajneesh over specific issues.

The one commissioner that had lost the election frequently voted in favor of the Rajneesh; I knew him well. He was an honest man that had a Christmas Tree Farm and with whom I had many occasions to talk. He voted as he did out of a sense of that it was right. While many felt he had become a pawn of the Rajneesh, he was not. While I too didn't agree with all his votes, he was not being devious.

The other two commissioners were not so favorably impressed with the Rajneesh - and the Rajneesh were concerned that if one of them chose not to vote for the festival they would lose on a possible 2-1 vote. These are the two commissioners they had poisoned the previous summer.

In the end the permit was issued.

They himmed and hawed for several weeks, but, finally came up with the conditions I required. One of my sergeants met with their security people and was satisfied that they had an acceptable plan.

They also had to meet conditions for the planning and health departments - all those conditions were met.

They didn't want to give me a weapons or ammo count, but I used their tactic of submitting a "public information request" and received an inventory. I knew that I really had no way of verifying the information, and that it probably wasn't completely accurate, but we at least had an idea of what was on the ranch.

There were no automatic weapons listed nor any "machine gun" attached to the helicopter. It would not necessarily have been unlawful for them to possess automatic weapons. As long as the federal firearms laws are followed anyone may possess an automatic weapon. But they only listed semi-autos rifles and handguns, revolvers, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns. Pretty standard issues for Police and security agencies.

Our deputies told me that they thought it was a fairly accurate depiction of the weaponry they had seen at the ranch. They had never seen a weapon on the helicopter, nor had they ever seen any automatic weapons.

I had no reason not to approve the security and did so.

I later regretted not making one more condition, which will be written about later. It wouldn't happen again.