2 Lawmakers Probe Island Raid Tactics

Two local congressmen have raised questions about an airborne raid on Santa Cruz Island hunting camps, asking the National Park Service to explain why such tactics were needed to arrest workers suspected of stealing Chumash artifacts.

U.S. Reps. Elton Gallegly (R--Simi Valley) and Walter Capps (D--Santa Barbara) both sent letters this week to Roger Kennedy, director of the National Park Service, after receiving phone calls and letters from constituents complaining that the armed raid was dangerously heavy-handed.

“In the two weeks since the police raid, I have received numerous, serious allegations from constituents who are unnerved by what they have seen, read or heard about the action,” Gallegly wrote in a letter sent Monday.

The raid on the last privately owned parcel of land in Channel Islands National Park followed a two-year investigation during which park service agents posed as hunters, officials said.

According to a sworn statement by a park service agent, a guide with Island Adventures had--on at least one occasion--taken him to a Native American burial ground and removed what appeared to be human bones.

The guide, Brian Krantz, was released from Santa Barbara County Jail soon after his arrest when he posted $25,000 bail, said Steve Balash, his attorney. But prosecutors have not yet filed charges against him, Balash said.

“I think there’s still a question about whether he did anything wrong,” Balash said.

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Prosecutor Darryl Perlin of the Santa Barbara district attorney’s office said the case was still under investigation.

While no one was injured during the Jan. 14 raid, the amount of force used to serve the search and arrest warrants on the two hunting camps prompted criticism from hunters and members of the nonprofit Santa Cruz Island Foundation.

That afternoon, 20 federal and local officers descended on the camps in a Blackhawk helicopter armed with semiautomatic pistols and rifles. The officers ordered guests and guides to the ground, where many were handcuffed and searched. They included a 15-year-old girl who was on the island to hunt sheep.

Although Santa Cruz Island is outside of his district, Gallegly said residents in his district are concerned about the raid.

“Several of my constituents have observed that the men who were arrested are well known in the community, have regular interaction with park officials and could have easily been approached in a low-key manner,” he wrote in his letter.

Congressman Capps echoed some of Gallegly’s concern about the raid.

“Concerns have arisen in and around the district that the show of force used in this exercise may have been excessive,” Capps said in a letter sent Friday to National Park Service Director Roger Kennedy.

“To date, it seems there is not adequate information in the public realm to satisfy the questions that have arisen,” he said. “I therefore ask that the [National Park Service] review the situation and provide me with complete information concerning the issue.”

A copy of Capps’ letter was also sent to Tim Setnicka, acting superintendent of Channel Islands National Park.

Local park representatives have spent the last two weeks answering questions from the public and from Capps and Congressman Wally Herger (R--Marysville), said Carol J. Spears, the spokeswoman for Channel Islands National Park. Herger heard from several hunters who had at one time gone on excursions on Santa Cruz Island with Island Adventures.

“At this point, it has just been on an informal level,” Spears said. “It’s been real good for us, actually, because it has given us a chance to give them the facts as they are and not as they are reported in some media.”