I worked with Roland Raymond something like ten years ago when he was Yurok representative to the California Indian Forest and Fire Management Council (CIFFMC) and I served as Cultural Heritage Manager and participated in CIFFMC activities in my capacity as Tribal Anthropologist for the Karuk Tribe of Clifornia. I was stunned to see the arrest photo of Roland and would have never recognized him as the dedicated competent forester I had known a decade in the past. He was a fine, intelligent, clean cut professional working for the good of his tribe and for the forests of California. What has happened to bring Roland to this sad point in his life is another tragic instance of the toll drugs, alcohol and gambling take on people, but that was not the Roland I knew and respected before these substances and habits took over his life. This is not to say that Roland is not responsible for his actions but it is to say that this is a different situation than one in which a person, clean, sober and of right mind, makes a conscious decision to violate the law and the confidence which has been placed in him.
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Posted by
John F. Salter, Ph.D.
on 04/20/2012 at 5:08 PM
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Re: “The Yurok Grift”
I worked with Roland Raymond something like ten years ago when he was Yurok representative to the California Indian Forest and Fire Management Council (CIFFMC) and I served as Cultural Heritage Manager and participated in CIFFMC activities in my capacity as Tribal Anthropologist for the Karuk Tribe of Clifornia. I was stunned to see the arrest photo of Roland and would have never recognized him as the dedicated competent forester I had known a decade in the past. He was a fine, intelligent, clean cut professional working for the good of his tribe and for the forests of California. What has happened to bring Roland to this sad point in his life is another tragic instance of the toll drugs, alcohol and gambling take on people, but that was not the Roland I knew and respected before these substances and habits took over his life. This is not to say that Roland is not responsible for his actions but it is to say that this is a different situation than one in which a person, clean, sober and of right mind, makes a conscious decision to violate the law and the confidence which has been placed in him.