Smokey the Bear has an anger-management issue

Leave it to the U.S. Forest Service to do the nearly impossible -- get into a large-scale, violent clash with members of the wildly eccentric but peaceful Rainbow family at an isolated gathering. From the Casper Star-Tribune:

U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses.

"They were so violent, like dogs," Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network [www.wtprn.com] after the incident.

"People yelled at them, 'You're shooting children,'" Parker said during an interview on the network's "Rule of Law Show." ...

One member who identified himself only as "Ryan" told Stevens he was with his two children in his tent at the Rainbows' Kid Village north of the main meadow where the major prayer circles and dinners are held.

One of the 10 officers pointed a pepper spray gun at him and his children, he said. His girlfriend was using the latrine outside when four officers came to her and asked if she was smoking marijuana.

The officers then ran through the Kid Village and through its kitchen, and chaos erupted, he said.

Other witnesses recounted seeing about 10 officers of the Forest Service's incident command team drag an older man from the woods near the Kid Village, according to interviews by Stevens.

A woman in the village told the officers to take their guns out of the Kid Village. An officer threw that woman to the ground and pulled her head back by her hair while she was being handcuffed, one Rainbow named Rick told Stevens.

"I got out and yelled, 'what the f--- are you doing?'" Rick said. "That got it started."

The officers backed up in a defensive position, and some used their Tasers on Rainbows, he said.

Rainbows called for their crisis management team, and Rainbow family elders urged the crowd to remain calm, he said. However, the crowd kept moving, and the Forest Service officers began randomly spraying the crowd with pepper spray bullets.

Are Forest Service officers juicing these days? I guess when your face starts breaking out and that roid-rage kicks in, a crowd of pot-smoking flower children down a dirt road is a pretty safe target for venting some aggression. After all, who's going to know?

It's a shame about that whole lots-of-witnesses thing, though.

Yes, I'm sure that more details will be forthcoming, and that the Forest Service's official version of events will be a tad different than that of eyewitnesses. But this little tussle will be difficult to explain.