Deputies working to identify suspects in Camp Meeker incident

A day after masked individuals reportedly barricaded the entrances to Westminster Woods near Camp Meeker, prompting a massive law enforcement response and the three-hour closure of Bohemian Highway, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office was working Saturday to identify four suspects who remain jailed.

Investigators have “tentative IDs” and suspect the four were staging a targeted protest against a group of campers they had a personal issue with, said Sheriff’s Lt. Brandon Cutting. But they are awaiting the results of a fingerprint check before releasing the names of the people suspected of charges including kidnapping, child endangerment, trespassing and resisting arrest.

“They have not cooperated in any way, fashion or form,” Cutting said of the four.

The suspects have been physically combative with law enforcement and have been speaking in an incoherent language since they were detained, Cutting said. Identifying details such as gender or race have been difficult to discern, but the four are not believed to be from the Sonoma County area, he said.

A fifth suspect who initially was detained apparently broke ranks with the group.

“When the protesters started doing the things they did, (the fifth person) realized it was not OK and escaped their plan,” Cutting said. That person was released.

The suspects, four of them wearing robes and Guy Fawkes masks favored by members of the online collective Anonymous or worn by the main character in the movie “V for Vendetta,” arrived in several large vehicles and blocked both entrances to Westminster, officials said. A bomb squad was called in to check the vehicles, Cutting said, prolonging their entry into the property.

DeAne Wilson, who lives about a mile south of the camp, saw an emergency alert about the incident, prompting her and her housemate to avoid going outdoors. They texted friends and browsed the internet to figure out what was happening while deputies sped toward the scene and the Sheriff’s Office’s helicopter buzzed overhead.

“We just said, ‘WTF, I guess we’ll close the doors and lock ’em and stay inside,” which they did for a few hours, Wilson said. Through the grapevine, she heard some “disgruntled people” at the camp were conducting a protest of some sort, with some connection to “V for Vendetta.” She called the actions of the masked people “a stupid thing to do in 2019.”

“It’s a disturbing time that we live in,” she said. “Humans don’t behave how I’d like them to, most of the time.”

The masked suspects were allegedly there to confront a group of 12 adults visiting Westminster, an overnight recreation area along Dutch Bill Creek northwest of Camp Meeker. It was not a political group, Cutting said.

Cutting declined to share additional details about what occurred when the suspects made contact, citing the ongoing investigation.

“We know that they have some disdain for the group that was meeting out there,” Cutting said. “We’re unclear as to why or how or what level it rose for them to come out for this incident. There was some force used.”

A Berkeley nonprofit called the Center For Applied Rationality was scheduled to hold an alumni reunion at Westminster Woods this weekend, according to the group’s Facebook page and an Eventbrite listing. Attempts to reach the organization for comment Saturday were unsuccessful.

When the suspects arrived, 24 children from Marin County were on a ropes course about a mile away from the adult campers being targeted, Cutting said. When officials received reports from staff members that one suspect was seen with what they believed was a firearm, deputies called in a SWAT team to conduct a tactical sweep of every structure on the hilly property. No firearm was discovered.

While specifics were not available Saturday on the number of officers or vehicles that responded to the incident, Cutting said the level of law enforcement response “would mirror (that for) an armed person at a schoolyard.”

During the search, officials found staff members barricaded in the various cabins and facilities across the site, fearful of an armed gunmen, Cutting said. The visiting children were evacuated in a BearCat armored vehicle before the search was completed.

“It was frightening to the staff. It was frightening to the people there,” Cutting said. “I don’t know how much the youth saw, but I know it was a traumatic event for the youth to hide and get in a BearCat through an unsecured scene.”

Staff Writer Will Schmitt contributed to this report.