Font ResizeBlanding » Even before news late Thursday of James Redd's death, residents of this town south of San Juan County's Blue Mountains were furious about a federal sting that netted some of Blanding's prominent citizens for allegedly trafficking in antiquities.
"Everybody in Blanding is outraged," said 69-year-old Joy Holliday. "Why aren't they out stopping things that hurt people."
The undercover operation -- which took two years and recovered more than 250 American Indian artifacts allegedly swiped from federal and tribal lands -- yielded federal indictments against 24 people, most of whom are from Blanding.
In the Four Corners area, pre-Columbian ruins, potsherds, arrowheads and other relics are nothing out of the ordinary. Thousands of sites dot the landscape around Blanding.
"You can't walk two miles in any direction without running into an Anasazi site," Holliday said. "In San Juan County, [collecting relics] is a hobby for many people."
In 1987, federal authorities raided the home of Holliday and her late husband, Jerry, as part of a larger operation.
"They took two pottery bowls and a pair of sandals," she said. "They never took us to court, but we couldn't get our things back."
Holliday's nephew, Earl Shumway, was convicted at that time of trafficking in antiquities and served six years in federal prison.
In the wake of the federal crackdown raid,
"Don't publish that picture," he yelled. "The FBI will come and arrest me."
The photographer had snapped a picture of a display showing several dozen arrowheads inside Redd's Hardware in Blanding. The display, put together by his grandfather, has been hanging in the store for decades.
Nonetheless, Redd said it might be misconstrued as illegal.
The indictments, he added, gives the town a bad name and spurs wild rumors.
"The story coming out is that there is an organized crime ring here, and we're all in it," he said. "Nobody condones breaking the law, but [federal authorities] are making a mountain out of molehill."
Not everyone in Blanding thinks the sting was bunk. Gus Sopena, 27, said some of those indicted knew they were doing something wrong.
"A lot of people think the feds went overboard and that they should be doing other things," he said. "But some of them ... were arrested before. They knew what they were doing was wrong."
Still, Steve Knight, who lives in neighboring Dove Creek, Colo., but does business in Blanding, said the manner in which the sting was conducted makes folks even more skeptical of Washington.
"This is unsettling the patriotic stability of one of the most patriotic areas in the country," he said. "The federal government only gets involved in the Four Corners area when they want to push someone around."
The arrest of 78-year-old Harold J. Lyman, is particularly galling to many.
"Harold Lyman is the nicest guy you'll ever meet," Knight said. "He hasn't broken the law in his life."
Renis Hylton deals in Indian artifacts at the Blue Mountain Trading Post in Blanding. All of his pots carry "certificates of authenticity" from sellers indicating where the materials were found.
Only artifacts from private lands can be removed from sites and sold.
"You're not supposed to be out there digging," he said of federal lands that make up much of the territory here. "But for 100 years, people have been finding things. They're just all over the place."
Hylton, too, believes federal authorities went too far.
"I don't know if they're trying to make a statement, or what," he said. "But it looks like Gestapo tactics."
In announcing the roundup in a Salt Lake City news conference Wednesday, authorities from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman vowed to clamp down on illegal antiquity trafficking - no matter how pervasive.
Jessi Palmer, 18, who grew up on a Blanding-area ranch, said many folks collect artifacts they find on their land.
"It's all over the place," she said. "But I don't see the point in selling it."
This is an updated version of a story.
