Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 24

What will follow, for the next few days, is the story of my first trip to the ranch, interaction with the Chief and Mayor and my first tour of the areas next to the road.

I had never been to the Rajneesh ranch. I had thought about doing it while campaigning, but I just didn't have the time to drive that distance to 'court' a group that had made it clear they didn't want any changes in the Sheriff's Office.

The population of that ranch was fluid. Some say it was around 2000 permanent residents. In the winter months my deputies estimated that there couldn't be much over one hundred or so.

They based that opinion on activity when they served papers and the tracks in the snow – not many. It was just a guess, but they felt there just wasn't very many people down there at that time.

However, it was found that the leaders hid a lot of people from the planning office. Some were not there legally and couldn't be exposed – and they had been telling the planning office that they only had a few people down there. So we really don't know how many were down there at any given time – the leaders didn't have a reputation for honesty.

The fact that there weren't as many people during the winter months – and many of the "city council" members were not present, later became a factor when one of the leaders admitted they often didn't hold council meetings and just made up the minutes – I imagine they didn't have enough of the council to have a quorum.

The Rajneesh fudged numbers, a lot. They were always stating they had more followers there during the festival and world-wide than they could prove. They needed to project an image of strength in numbers.

After I was elected I felt I needed to make contact, particularly with the Police Chief. I knew all my counterparts in the immediate area, but I had never met her.

I had been trying for several weeks to set up this meeting with the city of Rajneesh's Chief of Police, Ma Annad Barka. I had written her a letter when I could not contact her by phone.

I wanted to meet her to establish a professional relationship, as I had with other Chiefs and Sheriff's close to or adjoining our County. She continually replied the Mayor was out of town and unavailable.

I told her while I would like to meet the Mayor; I wanted to meet with her as the Chief. I had never encountered any Chief that had to have a Mayor with them to meet with another law enforcement official.

But I also knew that this "city" was different and ran differently than any other city in the United States. It was under the operations directive of the religion. She would not relent and insisted the Mayor was to be there.

Finally we were able to set up a meeting in the middle of March, and "just so you know" the Mayor would also be there.

I had arisen early that morning; as it happened it was the same day as our weekly Christian Emergency Service Providers Breakfast, I had asked prayer for wisdom. I left the breakfast feeling at peace, stopped by my office for a moment, exchanged my car for a Chevy Blazer and started the long trek to the ranch.

I would be on the road for about 3-4 hours before I arrived at the Police Department. Most of the trip was on paved State roads.

It is a relatively easy drive, until I left Shaniko, a ghost town, and started down the hill, a narrow state highway with lots of switch backs, into Antelope, then called Rajneeshpuram.

I went through Antelope and then southeast towards the county road that would lead me to the county road that went through the ranch.

They knew I was coming, of course, but we also knew that the Rajneesh followers watched us when we drove through Antelope and called to the ranch to let them know they could be expecting visitors. So I knew they had called ahead to let the ranch know that I was on my way.

In other visits to the ranch, on more than one occasion, I would go in the back way, not through Antelope just to surprise them. It always did. Not a big thing, but at least they became aware that I don't always do the same thing and they couldn't always depend on their early warning system.

One of the first things I was taught as a patrol officer was not to form patterns in my patrol – those who will commit crimes can tell when the best time to commit them would be, by changing up patrol routes we kept them off-guard, they couldn't depend on a set schedule.

But this first time I took the more direct route. I took the turn off the state highway onto the County road. While gravel, the road was bladed and in good condition – it was actually wider than the state roads in that area. This road had a lot of use from the local ranchers.

After a couple of miles, I turned onto the narrower county road that went through the ranch; this road goes from Wasco to Jefferson County and then Wheeler county coming out near Mitchel, Or. However it was rarely used by anyone other than those living at the ranch.

It was getting heavier use now, though, from the Rajneesh, the venders, the curious and of course, the County Agencies.

At the border to the ranch was an open gate and a few feet inside was a guard post. They called them 'information' posts. They were about 6'X6' (as I recall) and fully enclosed. The top portion was glass, the bottom, metal. There were a total of four spaced a mile or two apart, on the road down to the city.

They had a pull out area next to the road so people could pull over and talk to the guards. The stated purpose by the Rajneesh was this was an information booth so they could let visitors know about road conditions.

But we had been informed by a number of citizens that they would try and discourage anyone from driving any further down the road.

The road was a county road and opened to the public, no permission was needed to drive on it, yet many people thought they had to stop at the guard shack and get permission to go further. The Security people did all they could to support that misconception and to discourage people from going further down the road. The commune neither approved of nor welcomed uninvited guests.

There were two followers standing at the guard shack. They were security personnel clad in a maroon uniform, with brown leather police utility belts consisting of the normal security/police items, I had been told they had semi-automatic weapons also in the shack, but, if they did the weapons must have been behind the metal panels since they were not visible.

I smiled and waved to them as I drove by. They both raised their hands, shoulder high waving hesitantly, a look of surprise that I would acknowledge them that way.