Two Forest Service employees released safely after 15 hours held hostage in Shasta-Trinity National Forest
After a long standoff yesterday, two Forest Service employees being held hostage at Gumboot Lake in Siskiyou were safely released. Local agencies in Northern California, alongside law enforcement agencies across the state and nation, worked to respond to the crisis.
Two employees of the U.S. Forest Service were taken hostage in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest yesterday. The incident, which occurred at Gumboot Lake in Siskiyou County, led to an hourslong stand-off, officials announced in a press conference today.
The two hostages were held for around 15 hours by two armed individuals before being released safely by early morning today. Their names are being kept private as they recover, an FBI Sacramento spokesperson said.
Two suspects have been arrested in the case, identified today as Joseph Charles Henrichsen and his son, Phoenix Henrichsen.
U.S. Attorney Eric Grant, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, and FBI Sacramento Acting Special Agent in Charge Brian Tosh held a joint press conference today at the Shasta Lake Ranger Station, alongside federal, state, and local law enforcement officials.
Speaking at that press conference, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue recounted that a Forest Service law enforcement officer contacted the sheriff’s office around 10:55 a.m. yesterday, reporting that an armed man, later identified as Joseph Henrichsen, had taken two employees hostage and was asking to speak to the FBI.
The employees, who had been conducting field work as a part of their regular duties, had been zip tied and were being held at gunpoint inside a trailer at Gumboot Lake, LaRue said.
The sheriff’s office said it immediately began coordinating with the FBI alongside other local and federal agencies to issue a crisis response, and was able to identify the trailer where Henrichsen was holding the employees hostage at around 1:03 p.m. yesterday.
Officials began negotiating with Henrichsen around 4 p.m., Larue said, and after hours of negotiations, the two hostages were released at around 1:50 a.m. today. He said Henrichsen and his son were armed with an AR-15 and claimed to have a grenade. They surrendered at around 2:30 a.m.
“I can’t tell you, as a sheriff, how incredibly thankful I am for our partnerships,” LaRue said about the operation, “not only at the state and local communities we serve around, but also the federal government.”
The operation involved cooperation from agencies across the region and the country, including the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, FBI Sacramento, CAL FIRE, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Homeland Security Investigations. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was also flown out from Quantico, Virginia late at night to assist with the situation, FBI agent Tosh said.
“Crisis situations like this don’t often result in everyone leaving the scene safely,” he added. “We are very proud of the work everyone did today.”
Eric Grant, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, said that both Joseph Charles Henrichsen, 49, and Phoenix Henrichsen, who Grant said is of adult age, would be charged with kidnapping of a federal employee. Information about potential motives for the kidnapping is not being disclosed at this time.
The press conference was held after many community members reported sightings of SWAT and other law enforcement vehicles on nearby roads yesterday, and an FBI aircraft landing in Redding late at night. While there was much public speculation about a hostage situation, no official details or reports were released until this afternoon.
Gina Swankie, a spokesperson for FBI Sacramento, noted officials kept the information away from the public until the hostages were released, because it was a dynamic situation that required the use of a small one-lane road to respond.
Information from the public is crucial for the ongoing investigation, Tosh noted, directing any members of the public with firsthand information to 1-800-CALL-FBI or https://tips.fbi.gov/home.
Moe Shimizu is a student at Yale University. She’s reporting for Shasta Scout as a 2026 summer intern, with support from the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program — created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
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Like the two hostages, I’m a biologist by trade. People think I’m full of bull scheisse when I tell them it’s a risky profession owing to the gun-humpers you encounter out in the sticks. I had guns pointed at me from point-blank range twice in my early career, when I was doing a lot more fieldwork than I do these days. That’s twice more than most cops get guns pointed at them over their careers. One of my colleagues was murdered while doing fish surveys on the Klamath River when she encroached on someone’s mining claim. The most dangerous job in LE is game warden.
“A [Bellingham area] judge ordered him [J. Henrichsen] committed to a state psychiatric hospital for competency restoration. Because this occurred during COVID and the state hospital could not accommodate him due to bed shortages, the transfer never happened. After 132 days in jail without the ordered treatment, the charges were dismissed and he was released.”
The headline is a little on the nose: https://www.siskiyou.news/2026/07/19/loose-screws-how-washington-states-mental-health-system-failure-led-to-the-kidnapping-of-two-u-s-forest-service-employees/
I didn’t think they still had State Mental Institutions, I thought they closed them all & released everyone. I would like to know why these people did that and information concerning the judgment s. Certainly hope the punishment fits the crime!
Thank goodness this terrorist event concluded with no one hurt, and there was a quick and well-coordinated peaceful response and resolution! However, this must be investigated as a terrorist event.
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But there is no information about why this terrorist event happened. Did the National Forest employees stumble on a weed grow? Were they representatives of a social-political militia? What?
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All the law enforcement agencies and prosecutors owe the citizens an explanation. People must understand this type of activity will not be tolerated.
While I agree with most all of your comments per intent, the tedious repetition of catchphrases is straight out of the Goebbels/pumpkinfuhrer playbook.
The “weed” speculation is grasping at best.
This has mental illness and militia lunatic/S.o.J. written all over it, not that there isn’t a particularly pathetic local crossover variant in Shasta Co. based out of the gun-nut shop.
Obviously a motivator for this contingency is their ability to simply wag their maga-hats around and receive pardons for their felony convictions from King Avon Hands.
I’d wager mental illness magnified by meth. There’s a Joseph C Henrichsen, age 49, listed out of Southern California as getting pinched multiple times for drunk/drug DUI a few years back.
People want to enjoy the area, and then you have this. I heard a long time ago that if you’re out in the woods and see a trailer, leave.
Open the pod bay doors, HAL!
There is a lot of information missing from this story.
Like the fact the perpetrator was supposed to be locked up in the Washington State Psych Hospital, but got his anti-Russian hate crime charges dropped and was set free after waiting 4 months in jail to be admitted.
Anti-Russian doesn’t track cleanly with MAGA. Commander Bonespurs is an ally of Putin, whose dictatorship he greatly admires.
This fellow was an outsider, but Trinity County has long had an independent streak that defies binary political parties (Gumboot Lake is technically in Shasta County, but basically right on the county line).
In 1924 the county went for Socialist Progressive Robert M. La Follette.
In 1992 Trinity was the only California county to go for Ross Perot.
In 2008 it went for Obama.
Even in the more recent MAGA years, the percentage of Trump voters has hovered around 50% (49%, 51%, and 53% in 2016, 2020, & 2024 respectively).