Biography
Thomas Tripp was one of the Children of the River, three prisoners involved in the February 2001 takeover of a housing unit at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, Oregon. With Tewahnee Sahme and David Scalera, he demanded Native American religious freedom, restored educational programs and an end to brutal prison conditions. The men received additional prison time and spent twenty-two months in intensive management units. In a joint appeal after their return to Two Rivers, they sought transfers because guards had threatened reprisals.
Green Anarchy issue 15, Winter 2004, page 49, prints a contemporary support notice stating that Thomas Tripp was actually released on Friday, November 28 and was readjusting outside prison. The issue chronology and weekday place this on November 28, 2003. This supplies an actual release endpoint; the report of over five years served is not used to calculate an admission date or a precise term. His initial sentence and the additional punishment after the Two Rivers rebellion are not conflated into an invented custody start.
