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Prosecutors alleged that Hopkin and Reeves attacked the couple after a side mirror on the couple’s Chevy Tahoe struck Reeves as they were driving away from the first of three sold-out performances.

“We don’t believe the bear did it,” said Ann Bryant, executive director of the Bear League in the Tahoe Basin.

Fifty miles from Downieville, in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the Bear League was getting calls about Miller, too.

In the Lake Tahoe area, where 50,000 people live year-round and tens of thousands more crowd in on busy tourist weekends, bears were breaking into houses and raiding refrigerators; they were bursting into ice cream shops and strolling along packed beaches.

In 2024, after a homeowner in the Tahoe area fatally shot a bear he said had broken into his home, many people were outraged that the Department of Fish and Wildlife declined to file charges.