U.S. government sues group that fenced off Colorado national forest

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A group that attempted to claim ownership of 1,460 acres of national forest land in Colorado by fencing it off with barbed wire last month is being sued by the United States government.

According to court records, the government is suing Patrick Pipkin, Brian Hammon and all “unknown individuals” associated with the Free Land Holder Committee who helped fence off public land.

Hammon told the Denver Post that Free Land Holders are members of The United States of America Republic. They do not acknowledge the U.S. government, nor the authority of the president, Congress, governors, sheriffs and other elected officials.

The Free Land Holders started building a fence on a piece of public U.S. Forest Service land near Mancos, known as the Haller Deed Area, in mid-October .

By doing so, the group violated the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885 and its members are civil trespassers, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday.

Government officials in the lawsuit are asking the court to bar any further obstruction of the area or intimidation of the people who use it “to ensure continuing free and lawful access to public land,” according to a news release from the U.S. District Attorney’s Office.

Though the original fence was torn down last month by angry Mancos residents, the injunction would allow government officials to intervene if and when the Free Land Holders attempted to build a new fence, as they’ve threatened to since October.

“Public lands belong to all of us, not to any individual person or group,” acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Matt Kirsch said in the release. “We have filed this lawsuit to make clear that these federal lands remain open to the public for all lawfully permitted uses, and to prevent anyone from obstructing that public access.”

The land, which the Forest Service said it has owned since 1927, is largely used for public recreation — such as mountain biking, hiking and cross-country skiing — and cattle grazing.

“They couldn’t have picked a piece of ground that was more beloved by the town than that area,” Brad Finch told the Denver Post in October. Finch is a retired teacher and firefighter who lives outside Mancos and uses the national forest almost daily to hike, bike or ski.

The Free Land Holder Committee was an unknown entity before Pipkin’s group posted a “Notice of Claim” declaring their right to the public land as the United States of America Republic on a bulletin board at the local post office and began stringing barbed wire in the forest.

Pipkin has continued to post notices in the town, signed by him as a representative of the group, claiming authority over the land, according to the government’s news release. He posted multiple notices between October and November that the Free Land Holders planned to annex more of the forest if no one filed a claim to stop them before Dec. 15.

The Free Land Holder Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Pipkin insists his group is not connected to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, nor are they part of the extremist, anti-government sovereign citizen movement. However, watchdogs who monitor anti-government movements see similarities between Pipkin’s rhetoric and sovereign citizens.

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Originally Published: November 27, 2024 at 12:08 PM MST

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U.S. government sues group that fenced off Colorado national forest

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