Citizen efforts to remove members of the Shasta County, California Board of Supervisors have been covered previously on this blog. Now, the LA Times podcast has produced an episode (E24) about what's been going on there. I particularly appreciated this description of the Shasta County community where the militia behind this move is based:
You know, Cottonwood is a very tiny two-road town right on the border of the county. Law enforcement up there is very thin. There aren’t a lot of deputies, and this particular town felt like they weren’t getting the sheriff’s patrols that they needed. And so, about 10 years ago - little over that - they had a series of break-ins in town. And in response to that, they formed the Cottonwood Militia as sort of their own neighborhood patrol, albeit a heavily armed one, that has since then grown to stretch all the way up through Modoc County. It has really expanded quite a bit. They have scholarships, they run a boys camp - but they do military training in the woods and they are heavily armed. There is a real sense that they are their own force to be reckoned with in the area.This description is offered by LA Times reporter Anita Chabria. The podcast also features Hailey Branson-Potts, who often reports from far northern California. Chabria was previously with the Sacramento Bee.
The "thinness" of law enforcement reminds me of this from the same region--but across the state line in Oregon--a few years ago. What happens when lack of authorized law enforcement leaves a vacuum?
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