Hands are on team two. Come on,
here comes. He's coming in his chair.
An intense scene played out in the Payette
National Forest back in May after federal
agents shot a homeless man while trying
to take him and his family into custody.
We want to thank you for joining
us for the Sunday news at 10.
I'm Carolyn Holly, filling in After the
Emmett family became homeless in 2020,
they lived on public land throughout
southern Idaho until the spring.
Law enforcement kept kicking the Roberts off,
saying that they were
violating federal regulations.
But as you saw, the family's final run
in with law enforcement ended in chaos,
and now they're going after
the federal government.
So we want to warn you,
the video in this story is graphic,
and you might find it disturbing.
There's the warning right there.
Here's Morgan Romero with more.
Yeah, just kind of make
sure that we block him
in so we can't, you know,
kind of close. Friday, May
19th, 2023, an undercover operation
involving several law enforcement
officers at a trailhead in the pay at
National Forest did not go as planned.
Bureau of Land Management and
US Forest Service officers were
trying to arrest Judy Roberts and
her son's Timber and Brooks for
unlawfully living on public lands.
They were each charged with
multiple misdemeanors under the
Code of Federal Regulations.
Plainclothes officers knocked
on the door of the Roberts
trailer asking for a jump start,
according to court documents.
Timbers moving his vehicle close
to ours to get the jumper cables.
He's in the vehicle,
but our guys are on him.
In a Forest Service officer's
body camera video, you see
Timber coming out to help them,
followed by officers arresting him.
Hands are on team two. Come on.
Hearing Timbers calls for help, his brother
Brooks wheeled out in his wheelchair
and appeared to point his
revolver at the officers.
Here comes he's coming. In his chair.
You can hear officers fire
at least 11 gunshots.
The plainclothes officers didn't
announce themselves as law enforcement.
Brooks wheeled out,
is carrying a revolver with him.
But what he didn't know is there's
cops surrounding the whole scene.
And so they opened fire,
fired multiple shots into his body.
He was shot repeatedly,
even after he was defenseless in
the mud and got shot in the back.
Brooks survived.
I think it's a miracle,
but his attorney, Richie Epping, says
he's paralyzed from the waist down. I'm
sorry because I'm my brother
just being a pet attack, OK?
Give me a chance to put the gun down.
He just shot. Hey, Sir,
you were pointing at us.
Yeah, You had it out in your hand, man.
It is what it is. OK?
I didn't know you guys are cops.
May 19th was the climax of a threeyear
clash between the feds and the Roberts
when the family was evicted from
their M at home during the pandemic.
They moved to the Boise National Forest,
then BLM land in the desert South of Boise.
They ended up trying to survive and what
they had left, which was their vehicles.
Officials warned them multiple
times they were violating the
14 day camping limit in each
spot and they were eventually
given tickets in order to leave.
But the family told officers
they had nowhere else to go,
that homeless shelters were full. Had
Brooks and his family had any other
choice but to be where there were,
they would have been there.
The BLM connected the family with a
homeless Services Agency in Ada County,
which put them on a waiting list
for permanent supportive housing.
The approach that would have worked,
could have worked here, was to allow
this family to work with services
to to to find a place to live,
according to court filings.
During encounters with law enforcement
and the public over those years,
timber specifically grew
more hostile and aggressive.
Court documents show he
repeatedly threatened violence,
saying he would booby trap their sight,
and claimed his family owned
the public land they lived on.
After being forced off the
BLM land in the fall of 2020,
they headed up to the popular
W Face trailhead parking lot in
the Payette National Forest.
So my wife and I and kids have all
been coming here for a long time and
it's just a peaceful place to be.
But that piece was disturbed April 19th.
So I was parked in this pickup when
Randy Hickman, who lives in McCall,
pulled into the lot to catch up on work.
And I see a guy standing outside
my vehicle and he wants something,
I don't know what it is.
So I opened the door and get
out and said what do you need?
Hickman says an irrational,
agitated timber custody him
told him not to touch their
stuff and demanded he leave.
And you walk back over to the
Chevy pickup was parked about
where that mound of bark is,
and he walked it and picked up a knife
off the tailgate, shook the knife,
and started back toward me.
And that made it pretty easy for me
to see that I needed not to be here.
Hickman realized Timber was not
alone, so he left and called 911.
I wanted to make sure that I did
everything to clear my conscience,
that there's nothing more I could do.
Two months before,
the US Attorney's Office had filed
multiple misdemeanor charges
against the family for living
on BLM and Forest Service lands.
The judge ordered they leave
the forest, but they didn't.
It was obvious to me that something
was going to happen here at some point,
Court records show, the Forest
Service claimed the family's actions
posed in immediate danger to the
community and law enforcement,
so they lodged more charges
against them and planned the
undercover arrests on May 19th.
All of them had attorneys that
the court had appointed for them.
Without any notice to us or to the family,
the federal government got and arrest
warrants for each member of the family.
What do you guys attack within the attack?
You're under arrest because you
have a federal arrest warrant.
OK, For camping and living on
the forest for so many years.
OK, we haven't a court date in August,
I know, but we we were going
to explain everything when when
we tried to talk to timber.
OK, but that didn't go the
way we wanted it to.
While the FBI investigates the shooting,
Brooks attorney has filed a $50 million
tort claim notice against the feds.
The first step toward filing a lawsuit.
They say the agencies quote,
needlessly and recklessly shot
Brooks as part of a quote,
pointless and wildly
dangerous ruse operation.
They accuse the feds of illegally
targeting Brooks because he was homeless.
What would you call this shooting on
its face in the way that the that
federal agents went about this?
It was a reckless and indiscriminate
shooting of our client. It's going to
hurt, but it's going to hurt.
We got to I got to stop
the blood, Okay.
The government response to this was
counterproductive throughout all of
those years and certainly way out
of proportion for a family trying to
survive poverty and homelessness.
Morgan Romero Idaho's News Channel 7
Brooks is now out of the hospital.
His attorneys filed new documents
in his criminal case last week.
They are leaning on the Martin versus
City of Boise case in their defense,
in which a judge found criminalizing
homelessness violates people's Eight
Amendment rights. Essentially,
when people have no other place to go,
telling them their alternative
is jail is unconstitutional.
Judy and Brooks go to trial on
their criminal charges November
6th while Timber is in jail after
pleading guilty to camping on
public lands longer than allowed,
threatening,
intimidating or interfering with
the forest officer,
and assaulting a federal officer.