Five members of the Rainbow Family, a hippie group, were arrested in Cheyenne, Wyoming, during their annual gathering. The American Civil Liberties Union said on Saturday that it would investigate the actions of the federal officers who arrested the hippies.

The Rainbow Family is a group of hippie types and eccentrics who organize a weeklong national gathering on public land, each year. About 7,000 members were camping this year on Forest Service, near Big Sandy.

At the end of this week, about 400 members of the hippie group threw rocks and sticks at Forest Service officers who tried to arrest a member of their group. Five members of the Rainbow Family were arrested and one officer was wounded. A government vehicle was also damaged.

Becuase of the violent acting of the hippies, officers threw fired „pepper balls”, like paint balls but containing pepper, to control the crowd. The explanation of the officials was that the gathering could ruin forests. But the group said that members always clean up and reseed.

Linda Burt, executive director of the ACLU’s Wyoming affiliation, said that the organization plans to make phone calls to the members of the Rainbow Family, to hear their version of the story. Burt added that she has her concerns about „the idea that people are just cruising around looking for people to arrest when there have been no complaints and no reason for them to be there,” she said to the Associated Press.