Bear Lincoln Jailed in New Shooting Incident
More than 20 officers, mostly deputies, were sent to Round Valley to look
for Lincoln.
Bear Lincoln, who was acquitted three years ago of murdering a deputy
sheriff, surrendered to Mendocino County authorities Tuesday March 21 and
was charged in new shooting incidents on the Round Valley Indian
Reservation at Covelo. No one was injured.
Mendocino
District Attorney Norman Vroman told Monitor that Bear Lincoln
was named as the shooter by two witnesses in two incidents about 1AM
Tuesday. He said he didn't know if a gun was recovered, but didn't think
so. Lincoln was charged with three felonies: two counts of shooting into an
occupied dwelling and one count of child endangerment. In a negotiated
deal, Lincoln was allowed to drive from Round Valley with his attorney Phil
DeJong to Mendocino County jail in Ukiah where he is being held in lieu of
$500,000 bail.
Lincoln was in court Friday morning, but because he was not represented by
an attorney he did not enter pleas to the charges. His arraignment was
delayed until April 6 to allow him time to get a lawyer, expected to be
Phil DeJong. DeJong will likely try to get bail reduced to a level that
would allow Lincoln to post bond so that he does not have to remain in jail
pending trial. Lincoln was in jail for over two years pending trial on the
1995 charges for which he was found not guilty. After time for preparation,
there will be a preliminary hearing where the prosecution presents evidence
supporting the charges, and the defense can challenge that evidence and
present evidence of innocence. Then the judge will decide whether the
evidence justifies holding Lincoln to answer to the charges at trial.
DeJong has not returned calls from Monitor, possibly because he is not yet
officially Lincoln's attorney.
A call to the Sheriff's Office from Round Valley at 1:06AM reported shots
fired into the home of a Lincoln acquaintance where children were present.
When deputies arrived, they heard shots fired at the nearby home of Bear
Lincoln's cousin Pat Lincoln.
More than 20 officers, mostly deputy sheriffs, were sent to Round Valley to
look for Lincoln, and Sheriff Tony Craver and District Attorney Norman
Vroman went there early Tuesday morning to personally oversee the tense
situation. Willits police, District Attorney's investigators and California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officers also took part,
Sheriff's Department spokesman Capt. Kevin Broin said.
The massive police presence recalled the tense 1995 manhunt in Round Valley
when police searched for Lincoln following the fatal shootings of Lincoln's
friend Leonard "Acorn" Peters and Deputy Bob Davis. Lincoln was charged
with capital murder of Davis in that case, but was acquitted. Most jurors
said they did not believe Lincoln's bullet struck Davis, and that in any
case Lincoln had fired in self-defense after Davis and another deputy
opened fire without warning on Peters and Lincoln. Lincoln's acquittal
after two years of massive prejudicial publicity against him left many,
especially some law enforcement officers, feeling he had gotten away with
killing a cop.
The unresolved hostility against Lincoln by some in law enforcement and the
animosity against him and his family by members of the Britton family --
whose patriarch, Gene Britton, was killed by a friend of Lincoln that same
deadly April 15, 1995 -- caused some Lincoln supporters to fear he was in
danger of a revenge attack.
There had been several incidents of violence against Lincoln and Peters
family members while Lincoln was in jail for two years awaiting trial. They
included shooting into occupied dwellings of Lincoln family members and the
deliberate shooting in both legs of Pink Peters, brother of Acorn Peters.
Neither of these shootings was ever charged or prosecuted.
Capt. Broin said the situation was handled much differently this time than
in 1995. Sheriff Craver and D.A. Vroman took charge and were able to
quickly negotiate a deal for Lincoln to turn himself in peacefully.
But others saw some similarities to 1995. Cyndi Pickett, a friend of
Lincoln's, told Monitor she saw a number of officers who were heavily armed
and wearing SWAT-style camouflage gear. She said she, Lincoln's sister and
a male friend of Lincoln's were pulled over at 4:30 AM and ordered out of
their car at gunpoint by five or six officers. Pickett said she had been
awakened by a phone call at 3:30 AM from Lincoln's mother, who told her the
police were searching for Bear and asked her to go look out for his safety.
When questioned about Lincoln's whereabouts by police, Pickett told them
she was looking for him but was not likely to get very close if she was
being followed by law enforcement. She was allowed to go on her way, and
soon located Lincoln. Shortly after, she spoke to Sheriff Craver and helped
arrange for negotiations to begin, she said.
–If convicted, Lincoln faces a long prison sentence
District Attorney Vroman told Monitor the $500,000 bail is justified by the
very serious charges, and that a young girl could have been injured when a
bullet shattered a window over the bed where she was sleeping at Pina's
home. He added that under Prop. 4 he would be asking for denial of bail if
Lincoln is held to answer to the charges after a preliminary hearing. "I
don't care whether his name is Bear Lincoln or Joe Smith," Vroman remarked,
"if he does something like that we're going to ask for the highest bail we
can get. It's obvious he's a danger to the community." He added that, if
convicted, Lincoln faces a long prison sentence.
When it was pointed out that a number of previous shootings into occupied
dwellings of Lincoln family members and the deliberate wounding of Pink
Peters had gone uncharged, Vroman said that happened before he took office.
Asked if it was normal to send over 20 police officers to the reservation
to investigate the shootings, Vroman said he and Craver were aware of the
"volatile situation" there, and therefore he did not find it unusual at all
to send that many officers. "The fact that we didn't have to use them is
very good, but needing them and not having them there, that's no good."
When KMUD news noted the rarity of both the sheriff and D.A. personally
supervising the situation and asked why they did it, Vroman responded:
"Well I think it's obvious; Bear Lincoln has a history of being involved
with law enforcement, and he was at one time accused of killing a deputy
sheriff, and was acquitted of those charges. We didn't want any allegations
of the police taking the law into their own hands and somehow Mr. Lincoln
getting hurt or shot as a result of that. Not that I think that would
happen, but we didn't want that to happen. So we did everything we could to
prevent that and it worked." Vroman said their main worry was that the
shooting victims might retaliate against Lincoln, "and we'd have an all-out
war; that was our fear."
Sheriff Craver said he was very happy the day ended peacefully, and he
appreciated that Lincoln agreed to surrender. "We didn't need to be out
there searching for him in the middle of the night," Craver said according
to KMUD. The 1995 shootings took place in darkness when two deputies were
on stake out looking for the shooter in another killing earlier that evening.
Asked for comment on the handling of the incident, Vroman told Monitor,
"Both Tony and I are very happy that this went down in such a fashion that
nobody's rights got trampled, nobody got injured, and it was a very
well-run project. It went the way things are supposed to go."
–Home shooting incident began 1995 events leading to deaths of three
One of the two witnesses identifying Lincoln was asked by Cyndi Pickett, a
close friend of Lincoln, how he could be sure the shooter was Bear Lincoln.
She said the man replied that he recognized Lincoln's car and voice. If
accurate, that implies that Lincoln was not actually seen by the witness.
Pickett said the man and Lincoln probably had known each other all their
lives and she thought they got along, but another source told Monitor she
thought the two had some kind of "feud" going recently. This witness
identifying Lincoln was also convicted a few years ago of assaulting a
former Anderson Valley Advertiser reporter covering the Lincoln case.
The home of Bear's cousin Pat Lincoln was the location of the second of the
two shooting incidents. It was also where, three years earlier while Bear
was in jail awaiting trial, Pat had fired a shot which struck Bear's
mother's vehicle as she drove by. Pat had been among the early leaders of
Bear's supporters following the 1995 killings, but he was fired by Bear
after a dispute over money. While in jail for shooting at Bear's mother,
who is his aunt, Pat passed a note to Bear saying the shooting had been
meant as a joke, Pickett said.
According to Cora Lee Simmons of Round Valley Indians for Justice, it was a
1995 shooting into the home of Acorn Peters, allegedly by Neil Britton,
that culminated in the tragic shootings that claimed three lives on April
15 that year. Peters' teenage son had been beaten up by Britton, Simmons
said, and Britton followed that up with a drive-by shooting into Peters'
home. But that time, no 20 officers were dispatched to investigate. Peters
reported the shooting to authorities and had to make four separate requests
for a deputy to come investigate before one finally did, Simmons said. The
deputy pried the bullet from the wall, but Britton was not charged, nor
anyone else.
Unresolved hostility over that incident led to Neil Britton's bloodying the
nose of Acorn Peters at the Covelo gas station April 15, and in
alcohol-fueled retaliation Peters' brother Arylis killed Neil Britton's
father Gene a few hours later. Acorn Peters was killed a few hours after
that by Deputy Davis, who apparently mistook him for his brother. A few
minutes later Davis was killed by a shot fired either by Bear Lincoln in
self defense or by Deputy Dennis Miller, by accident or by mistake in the
darkness, the majority of the Lincoln jurors believed. Simmons said she
felt sick over the latest events, and she felt some officers were eager for
an excuse to retaliate against Lincoln. She said she was greatly relieved
that nobody was hurt this time and that a negotiated peaceful surrender
took place.
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