PORT ANGELES — Investigators are culling through social media and cellphone information, newly obtained through search warrants, to determine who terrorized a Spokane family by barricading their exit from Forks on June 3.
“There’s a lot of data,” Brian King, Clallam County chief criminal deputy, said Friday.
“We’re looking at software to potentially aid us to expedite that.
‘The quality of that information is something we are also assessing.
“It’s going to be a labor-intensive process.”
An Eastern Washington inter-racial couple, the woman’s 16-year-old daughter, and the girl’s grandmother traveled to Forks in their converted white school bus June 3 to visit the setting for the Twilight series of books and movies.
Shannon Lowe, a family member, said they endured nine hours of being followed and asked by numerous residents about their political beliefs before some still-unknown perpetrators felled five trees at their U.S. Forest Service campsite (camperdescribesordeal).
There they were yelled at and sprayed with gravel from all-terrain vehicles, blocked from leaving before some teenagers chain-sawed them free and law enforcement officers escorted them safely out of town.
Lowe told Peninsula Daily News at least one resident was openly armed as the family was followed from the Thriftway parking lot in Forks, where several people repeatedly asked them if they were in the antifa movement, to where they had hoped to camp for the night, outside Forks off Sitkum Sol Duc Road.
King said Facebook posts by FREDS Guns 2.0 owner Seth Larson of Sequim were a “motivating factor” behind Forks residents mobilizing in response to unfounded Internet reports that racial justice advocates involved in antifa — short for antifascist — were traveling to rural areas in buses to wreak havoc on businesses and residents.
“It certainly was a factor, with all of the information out there on social media and the internet and in regards to antifa and violence in the cities,” King said.
“Certainly that was occurring that day, and certainly folks were seeing it and it was being shared with other people.”
King said that Larson was not the subject of a search warrant.
The same day the Spokane family visited Forks, Larson had urged people to carry guns to a racial justice protest organized in Sequim to protect Sequim businesses from antifa, claiming he had “intel” that antifa was busing in protesters.
He and others showed up armed at the protest, which was peaceful. He later apologized, saying he “jumped the gun” with a “knee-jerk reaction.”
King said the sheriff’s department knows that during the family’s visit, people were openly armed, which is legal in Washington state with a permit and which King said is not uncommon at protests.
King has said 10 people from their teens to their 40s had direct knowledge of the tree-cutting incident, and that people with direct knowledge have refused to cooperate with investigators, leading to the search warrants.
“The problem is we can’t attribute specific conduct to any specific individuals in the group of individuals that we know were present,” he said Friday.
“We are hoping this information is what further leads us to narrow that to potentially identify the conduct of specific individuals within that group.”
He said Friday that 10 search warrants were issued for for individuals with social media accounts including Facebook and for cellphone content including text messages.
The “several” warrants among the 10 that recently bore large amounts of information included Facebook posts the company makes available to law enforcement through a special portal.
“We are utilizing our cold-case detectives to help us essentially data-mine all that information,” King said.
It includes deleted photographs, posts and attachments, “everything like that over the time frame which the warrant identifies.”
King said not all deleted information can be recovered depending on the practices of the social media or cellphone provider.
Five alders worth $183 were cut to block the family from leaving the area.
As the investigation proceeds, the sheriff’s office is sharing information with the FBI because the offense occurred on federal land.
Illegally felling trees on federal land is a misdemeanor in county and federal district courts.
Additional charges are possible depending on the intent of those who cut them down if the person or persons were racially motivated.
“We are committed to investigating this until we have exhausted our investigative resources,” King said.
“It’s important to the community, and we’ve listened to the community.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
