PORT ANGELES — A tree activist who was arrested while protesting the early-morning cutting of the long-debated Lions Park sequoia last week has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges.
Devon G. Gray, 64, of Port Angeles, was charged Friday with second-degree criminal trespass and obstructing a law enforcement officer for allegedly refusing to leave the park after it was closed for tree removal early Thursday.
Gray was handcuffed near the stump of the freshly-cut redwood, named Hope by members of a citizens group who fought to protect it.
City officials maintain that the 110-foot sequoia posed a safety risk and had shallow roots that were damaging nearby property.
The decision to cut the tree was made after a 2 1/2-year public process that involved a citizen’s subcommittee, public meetings, multiple arborist reports and the development of a tree removal policy, City Manager Nathan West said Thursday.
Gray was arraigned Friday in Clallam County District Court. Her next court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 12.
Judge Pro-Tem Lawrence Freedman returned Gray’s $1,500 bail, which had been posted by Tyson Minck and Elizabeth Dunne of Save Our Sequioa.
As part of her conditions of release, Gray was ordered to stay out of Lions Park.
City Parks and Recreation Director Corey Delikat has said the park at 571 E. Whidby Ave., would remain closed until the tree’s trunk and limbs are removed.
The city will contact the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to possibly use the trunk for a city project, Delikat said Thursday.
Delikat declared that the park would be closed for tree removal Thursday under section 12.04.030 of the Port Angeles Municipal Code, court papers said.
Officer Joshua Powless said he observed two males yelling loudly in anger and a woman later identified as Gray yelling aggressively at city workers after the tree was cut, according to the affidavit for probable cause.
Powless announced that the park was closed and told the threesome to leave, he said.
“I repeated this order multiple times and the males began to reluctantly comply,” Powless wrote in his report.
“Gray stayed at the trunk of the tree and told me that she was going to arrest me.”
Powless said he warned Gray multiple times that she would be arrested if she did not comply.
“I advised Gray that she was under arrest and to place her hands behind her back,” Powless wrote.
“As I did so, I took hold of Gray’s arm, but she immediately began to pull away from me. I used a bent arm bar take-down to guide her to the ground and placed her in handcuff restrains.”
A video of Gray’s arrest was posted to YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlOSLYXvWy4.
“This tree belongs to us, the people,” Gray could be heard telling the officer.
She said she would make a citizen’s arrest.
“I’m going to arrest you for eco-terrorism,” she said.
Gray is a member of the Port Angeles Tree Board established in April and has protested removal of trees from Lincoln Park.
Dunne, an environmental attorney and another member of the tree board, said the sequoia was secretly cut at dawn and that there were no notices about the park being closed.
Delikat did not return phone calls Friday.
Port Angeles City Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin was among the dozen who attended Gray’s court hearing Friday.
“I think transparency is important for government, and the city did not live up to my expectation for transparency in this action,” Schromen-Wawrin said after the hearing.
Schromen-Wawrin made a motion to delay tree removal at the council’s last meeting Dec. 18. The motion died for a lack of a second.
Dunne hired a master arborist to conduct a full-scale, Level 3 risk assessment of the sequoia Dec. 11. The arborist, Katy Bigelow, concluded that the tree’s co-dominate stems could be made safe by an inexpensive dynamic cabling system.
Previous arborist reports, which were less extensive than Bigelow’s assessment, found the sequoia to be a high-risk tree.
“This is clearly an issue that’s drawn great interest from various segments of our town,” said defense attorney John Hayden of Clallam Public Defender, who is representing Gray.
“I just think it’s unfortunate that this lovely woman had to spend time in jail, for what reason I don’t know.
“It’s an outrage that she spent one second in jail,” Hayden added in an interview after the court hearing.
“When we go down the road 50 years or 100 years from now, if we exist, the historians are going to describe the environmentalists of today as heroes, and they’re going to describe the people who stood by and did nothing as cowards.
“Devon Gray is among that group of people that are firmly and deeply committed to Mother Earth, and they will be written as heroes in the future,” Hayden said.
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
