SAN FRANCISCO (AP - October 22, 1998) -- The mother of an anti-logging activist killed by a falling tree said Thursday a sheriff's investigator told her he would recommend manslaughter charges against the dead man's fellow protesters.
At a news conference called to demand a state or federal investigation of David Chain's death, Cindy Allsbrooks said the Humboldt County detective told her Monday he blamed Earth First! activists, not Pacific Lumber Co. or the logger who cut the tree that crushed Chain.
The investigator, Juan Freeman, "told me he was going to recommend that the Earth Firsters who were out there with my son be charged with manslaughter," said Ms. Allsbrooks, of Coldspring, Texas.
She said Freeman described the logger, A.E. Ammons, as "a reasonable man, just like myself," and "a man with a conscience." She quoted Freeman as saying, "These kids were out there messing with this man's livelihood."
Freeman did not explain the basis for charging the protesters, Ms. Allsbrooks said. She said he told her not to bring a lawyer to their meeting.
Sheriff Dennis Lewis said later Thursday he did not know whether Freeman, the office's chief investigator in the case, had concluded charges should be filed. The first part of Freeman's report was sent to District Attorney Terry Farmer on Thursday, but Lewis said he had not read it and doubted it would recommend any charges, since the investigation is not over.
"I know that investigator Freeman has become convinced there was no purposeful harm caused by the person cutting the tree, and from what I know of the facts, I agree," Lewis said. He said it would be "premature of me to speculate" whether anyone should be charged.
Chain, 24, was killed Sept. 17 in a redwood grove near Grizzly Creek, 280 miles north of San Francisco. He and other members of the radical environmental group Earth First! were protesting logging of old-growth trees.
Pacific Lumber officials said Ammons and other loggers were unaware of the protesters' presence. But Earth First! says a videotape an hour earlier showed Ammons swearing at protesters, threatening to send a tree in their direction and saying he wished he had his gun.
Ms. Allsbrooks said she found the company's account unbelievable after visiting the site Tuesday, standing on the spot where her son was killed and easily hearing sounds from the tree stump 90 feet away.
"There's no way these kids could have been in the forest and these loggers not have heard them," she said. She said she belonged to no environmental group and was "not here to advocate for environmentalists," just to seek the truth.
"Nothing prepared me for the shock of learning that the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department was preparing to implicate my son in his own death," Ms. Allsbrooks said, reasoning that his conduct was similar to the actions of his fellow protesters. "I can't understand why Pacific Lumber would be immediately ruled out as a suspect."
Lewis, the county sheriff, said Chain could be considered responsible for his own death, in the sense that "had he not been where he was, he would not have been injured." Whether he would have been legally culpable is a different question, Lewis said.
Ms. Allbrooks' lawyer, Steven Schectman, said her conversation with the detective showed the need for an investigation by the state or federal government, which Schectman has previously sought. "Local law enforcement is unable to see the truth from the trees," he said.
State Attorney General Dan Lungren has declined to intervene, saying he was confident the local investigation would be impartial. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Jacobs, spokesman for the federal prosecutor in San Francisco, declined comment.
Lewis said he would welcome an outside investigation, but "the feedback I've gotten from both the state and federal Department of Justice is that they have no interest in involving themself."
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[posted October 23, 1998]
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