BOLINAS – Motorists who manage to find the Marin County hamlet of Bolinas, where reclusive residents famously formed a “Border Patrol” to fend off tourists, are greeted with a promising sign.
“Entering a socially acknowledged, nature-loving town,” it reads.
But past the old schoolhouse and the lettuce fields, an old hippie community known for taking care of itself and of its own is in the midst of a soul-searching – and a rather public one at that.
Late the night of June 23, as a bonfire burned on the town's beach, a large group of young men nearly beat to death a homeless man who had drifted into town a year earlier spouting philosophy, police said.
Ricky Green, who is in his early 30s, was punched and stabbed. Green remains hospitalized. Three men and a teenage boy stand accused of attempted murder.
Everyone knows Green, who practiced martial arts moves in the streets, spoke of odd concepts such as the “fifth triangle” and passionately sang U2's “With or Without You” during open-mike nights at Smiley's Saloon.
In a town of perhaps 2,000 people, everyone also knows his alleged assailants.
Although some were frightened by Green's antics, they seem to agree on one point: Of all places, Bolinas was the last town where such a crime should happen.
“If you're going to go down on your luck, this is the place to do it,” said Mark Fraser, 63, a filmmaker who spent a weekend with a friend in Bolinas 30 years ago and never left.
“I think many people came here looking for the home they didn't have,” said Fraser, one of many residents who packed a community meeting last week about the attack. “I don't think it's very possible to feel that way in a big city. And I think that's why people are so shocked by this.”
Sofi Setrakian, 20, a waitress, pointed to a dangerous divide between adults and children who were expected to have idyllic childhoods in an out-of-the-way place.
“The people (who) should be our role models are getting drunk all the time,” Setrakian said. “It's a loss of both adults and children stepping up to their responsibilities. We're sick right now, I guess.”
On a sculpture next to the Bolinas Market, residents had placed notes about Green. One read, “The end of the brutality starts now.”
Another offered a prayer “for all those involved, and the ability to emerge into the light from all of this darkness.”
Police, who've said little about the case, reported that Green was assaulted after 11 p.m. on Brighton Avenue, which leads to a beach popular with surfers.
Four people have been charged with attempted murder. They include Thoren Manetta, who turned 21 the night of the beating, and Ryan Lorne, 22, both of Bolinas. Stefan Do, 16, of Bolinas was charged with the same crime in adult court. Lamont Elkins Jr., 19, of Mill Valley was arrested Wednesday after sheriff's deputies, acting on a tip, surrounded a home in Marin City.
Lorne, a grocery store worker with a past drunken-driving conviction on his record, “feels really badly about what happened,” his attorney said Tuesday.
“Some kids got drunk and did something stupid that they're going to regret for a very long time, but it's not attempted murder,” attorney Jon Rankin said. “I don't think they really thought it through. It was kind of a rash act.”
The young men have their defenders in town, some of whom spoke up at the community meeting.
At Smiley's Saloon, bartender Emily McCollum, 33, said some of the accused were troubled and “had a twisted view of what is right and wrong.” McCollum said Green was an instigator who was banned from her bar and who often screamed at her on the street.
“This guy was a problem in this town,” said Magica Hills, 26, the daughter of the saloon's owner.
Across the street at the Bolinas Market, employee Jody Rose said Green – who lived with a local musician until he committed suicide earlier this year – was harmless. Rose said Green, who described himself as an architect from Petaluma, expressed a desire to become part of the community and helped out at the annual Sun Festival to welcome newborn babies.
“He came here to go on a spiritual journey,” said Rose, 37. “He wanted to give everything up and see what comes from having nothing.”
Rose was one of many residents who hoped the beating would serve as a “wake-up call,” leading Bolinas to reconnect with its communal roots.
“Not enough adults were being responsible for children – for any child who needs it,” she said. “We're ready to create the kind of community where every kid has that.”
