HikeArizona.COM

Rainbow camping retreat on mountain turns violent
By Jon Johnson
Assistant Editor
Eastern Arizona Courier
Published on Friday, April 10, 2009 2:40 AM MST

A camping retreat for members of the Rainbow Family at the old Cluff Dairy Farm on Mount Graham turned violent Wednesday evening as one member was allegedly beaten with a frying pan.

The Rainbow Family is a counterculture group that has gatherings of its followers to create temporary communities. The gatherings are usually held in outdoor locales and spread a message of peace, love, harmony and community. The largest Rainbow Gatherings have attracted 30,000 people. According to a Web site dedicated to the Rainbow Gatherings, the next scheduled gathering will take place in New Mexico later this year.

According to police reports from the Graham County Sheriff's Office, a small group of Rainbow members were camping at the old dairy farm when a confrontation arose at about 10:40 p.m.

Cory Alan Joyner, also known as 2Tall, told officers he was arguing with his girlfriend, Candise Marie Olten, aka Candy, when the rest of the group got mad at them because arguing is not allowed. Joyner told deputies that another member of the group, Amanda Rudder, aka Memphis, attacked Olten with a rock. He said he attempted to help Olten and other members of the group attacked him.

Olten also told deputies Rudder had attacked her. She was found below the picnic area known as Wet Canyon by University of Arizona officer Jerry Garcia, who called Graham County deputies. The U of A has a police unit on the mountain to protect the property of the Mount Graham International Observatory.

Joyner said another member, Marc Constantine Alexander, hit him in the head with a frying pan. Joyner said he and was hit and kicked repeatedly as he fell to the ground. When he got up, Joyner said he was still mad at Rudder so he picked up a rock and broke out the rear and passenger windows of her car his on way out of camp.

Joyner began having a seizure during his police interview and paramedics from Southwest Ambulance transported him to the forest boundary line. There, Joyner was airlifted to the intensive care unit at the University Medical Center in Tucson. According to a public affairs officer from UMC, Joyner has been releaed from the hospital.

Deputies received mixed stories from the group members, who had been drinking alcohol.

Alexander told deputies he heard Joyner breaking the windows and had a physical confrontation with him. According to the police report, Alexander admitted striking Joyner multiple times but denied using anything other than his own hands.

Other members of the group stated Joyner had been the one beating up on Olten and that Joyner assaulted them when they tried to stop him.

The Graham County Sheriff's Office investigation is ongoing, and multiple assault charges and criminal damage against Joyner are pending the investigative review.

Alexander was taken into custody at the scene and was booked into the Graham County Jail on a charge of aggravated assault against Joyner.

officer Jerry Garcia, sent to arrest hippies.. now that's funny!

Oh the multiple levels of irony are strong in this one

Honestly, if it wasn't dated April 10th, I would have assumed it was April 1st.

My family owns a deer hunting camp up in northern PA and 10 years ago the Rainbow Family was a few miles away in the Allegheny NF for over a month having a shindig. Miles through the forest you could hear a thumping noise, like they were playing drums or something. This was the same summer The Blair Witch Project came out, so that made it actually kind of creepy. I took a ride to some areas nearby where they were and the crowd was huge. I've always thought what they do is actually pretty bad for the environment anywhere they have their powwows due to the size of the crowd. To have a community of up to 30k people for a month has to pollute the nearby streams. We saw some of them in the nearest town and they fit the bill for typical hippies. They also couldn't drive worth a #$%^. I almost got hit in the parking lot by a lady backing out and not even looking behind her or in the mirrors. The last time that happened to me was by a snowbird in Mesa.

These people are dufasses; NPS runs them out of Saguaro all the time and they try to hug the rangers for their trouble. My buddies and I "encountered" them years back dancing around a campfire out near Rice Peak one night...their encampment was a sight to behold. They were going on about how then president Clinton was lying about UFOs and that the US military was flying a recovered UFO that looked like an inverted bathtub around America taking pictures in people's bathroom windows or something...

As to this incident, I'd like to quote The Vandals:
Beating on a drum
you sing of quiet and peace,
burning marijuana
and take the time to hug a tree,
say no possessions,
but get all that you can,
you stink like @#*! and smile through it
Don't ever trust a happy man

dysfunction wrote:Oh the multiple levels of irony are strong in this one

I shouldn't laugh, but the whole thing is hilarious. I narrowly missed an infestation of the Rainbow Family in CO a few years back. It was much bigger than this one seems. Although there was no violence, it was a crime wave of its own.

long live the Vandals, and Youth Brigade, and Seven Seconds, and and and..
to quote a line spoken to The DUDE:
"Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?"

you really want to save our environment? start with taking a shower!

Te-wa: Agreed x1,000!! ;)

On another note, gotta love this one, as well:
I don't like your jimmy-jammer name. I don't like your jimmy-jammer face. I don't like your jimmy-jammer behavior, and I don't like you, jimmy-jammer. Do I make myself clear?

wow, some of my favorite bands surface in a Rainbow Family thread


Look, let me explain something to you again. I'm not Mr. Lebowski; you're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude, so that's what you call me. That, or Duder, His Dudeness, or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing.

Wow. I think I almost peed myself a little reading this one.

So there's a ban on arguments, but when someone breaks that rule, the response is assault and property damage. Hmmmm, I guess I'm just not enlightened enough to understand....

I'd heard strange tales of their gathering up in this area about a decade ago. Which were similar in their irony, although not quite to this level. I only hope that the next meeting is no where near the area of New Mexico I'm moving to! I'd prefer to laugh at the irony from afar.

At least it wasn't a nudist colony this time.

Yeah, I heard they messed up Carnero Lake pretty well in '98. No National Forest wants anything to do with them. I am not sure how they can get a permit to hold an event for that many people. I should think there would be a way for the USFS to prevent it.

My husband used to work for UAPD, knew Jerry Garcia. He always thought it was funny about the name. When he first met him, Jerry was a very young cop, had grown up in Tucson. And Officer Garcia had never HEARD of the famous Jerry Garcia! He had, however, heard of Santana. He thought Santana was some sort of Hispanic music band, because they had put out some Spanish albums. So when they were to appear at Pima County Fairgrounds, he told my husband he was going to go to the show. My husband said, "Santana? A HISPANIC BAND? They were at Woodstock, you know?" So Officer Garcia went to the concert, during which he suffered through having joints passed across in front of his face all evening. This apparently upset him very much. The next day he complained about it to my husband. He said, "Next time I'm taking my gun and my badge to the concert!" (He's not much like the OTHER Jerry Garcia!)

Crazy Hippies

azbackpackr wrote:Yeah, I heard they messed up Carnero Lake pretty well in '98. No National Forest wants anything to do with them. I am not sure how they can get a permit to hold an event for that many people. I should think there would be a way for the USFS to prevent it.

My husband used to work for UAPD, knew Jerry Garcia. He always thought it was funny about the name. When he first met him, Jerry was a very young cop, had grown up in Tucson. And Officer Garcia had never HEARD of the famous Jerry Garcia! He had, however, heard of Santana. He thought Santana was some sort of Hispanic music band, because they had put out some Spanish albums. So when they were to appear at Pima County Fairgrounds, he told my husband he was going to go to the show. My husband said, "Santana? A HISPANIC BAND? They were at Woodstock, you know?" So Officer Garcia went to the concert, during which he suffered through having joints passed across in front of his face all evening. This apparently upset him very much. The next day he complained about it to my husband. He said, "Next time I'm taking my gun and my badge to the concert!" (He's not much like the OTHER Jerry Garcia!)

This officer Garcia sounds like a total square.

azpride wrote:This officer Garcia sounds like a total square.

And very cultured too. I guess that's what growing up in Tucson gets you.
(not that Phoenix is a whole lot better...)

Be careful how wide a brush you paint us Tucson natives with!!!

I knew my Tucson slam would incite a comment from Jeff!