Occupants evicted from Hiawatha Lake camp

MOSES LAKE — Occupants of an encampment near Moses Lake were notified they were trespassing Wednesday morning and asked to leave by this morning.  

Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, said the property was the location of an incident in mid-March where the suspect fired a BB gun at a bystander and barricaded himself in one of the trailers. That wasn’t the only incident on the property, Foreman said.  

“Deputies have been out there for numerous crimes against people, finding stolen property taken from farms and businesses and homes that are near this homeless camp, and (Grant County) Fire District 5 has responded to countless wildland fires and vehicle fires at that site,” Foreman said.  

The Moses Lake Police Department was also called to the property numerous times, both to help other agencies and on their own investigations, he said.  

Foreman estimated that there were more than 50 trailers at the site, about 10 miles west of Moses Lake. The property is owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. About 10 GCSO deputies went to the site Wednesday morning, accompanied by Colville Tribal Police, Foreman said in a GCSO release. 

Grant County officials have been discussing the property and the incidents there with Colville officials, Foreman said. 

“After discussing this with the Coville Tribes and describing the impact it is having on the community, the (Colville) let us know they did not want to have anybody staying on that property. (Colville officials) asked us to evict the people from the property, and also let the people there know that they were permanently trespassed from the property. If they do return, they would face charges of criminal trespassing,” Foreman said. 

The Hiawatha property was attractive because the landowners lived out of town, Foreman said. 

“In this case, the property owner is far away and was not able to personally tell people that they were trespassed,” he said. “And because the problems escalated. Once the tribe understood the size of the problem, they agreed that they did not want to have any more people trespassing on their land.” 

The notice served to the occupants included the information that the Moses Lake Sand Dunes would not be available. The sand dunes are Grant County property, and trespassing on all county-owned land is prohibited, Foreman said.