Full Version: Can you believe it?
OK, I'm paraphrasing here. Group of tree huggers are off to the meeting to learn how to "protest". A bomb goes off in their car. The FBI arrest them for having a bomb and explosives etc. Now they can't prove that it was "their" bomb. So the huggers sue for libel and defamation and win a judgement of FOUR MILLION DOLLARS. That's FOUR MILLION TAX DOLLARS.
do you have a link to this story?
Where did you find it?
Vor
Where did you find it?
Vor
I saw it Wed. on CNN. It was on about 3-4 o:clock.It was one of those talk segments on the news where this guy has people on that talk about really stupid stuff that happens by the gov., huggers, laws etc.
![[Grenade]](graemlins/grenade.gif)
well that blew up in their face.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-00004...1226jun12.story
Earth First! Pair Win Jury Award
Courts: Panel finds FBI, Oakland police violated their rights in 1990 car-bombing case.
By BETTINA BOXALL and KAREN ALEXANDER, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
OAKLAND -- OAKLAND -- Ending a two-month trial and handing Earth First! activist Judi Bari a posthumous vindication, a federal jury awarded $2.9 million to her estate Tuesday after finding FBI agents and Oakland police officers violated her civil rights in their handling of a car-bombing investigation 12 years ago.
Bari, who died of breast cancer in 1997, and fellow activist Darryl Cherney were arrested for transporting explosives after a pipe bomb blew up in Bari's car in May 1990, severely injuring her.
Prosecutors later declined to press charges and the two sued, complaining that the government had framed them and engaged in a smear campaign to discredit their movement against redwood logging on the North Coast. A U.S. District Court jury deliberated for more than three weeks before reading its verdict around noon Tuesday from a complicated, 21-page form. The jurors awarded Cherney $1.5 million in damages.
Bari's attorneys and supporters hugged and cried after the jury was excused. A few dozen environmental activists waved placards and cheered as the panel left the federal building in downtown Oakland.
The trial was seen by many on the political left as a test of broader allegations that the government unfairly disrupted the activities of radical groups beginning in the 1960s.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken rejected the plaintiffs' effort to make the trial a platform for such issues, including counterintelligence against the Black Panthers. But the victors still found in the verdict a broad condemnation of the FBI and other authorities.
"The FBI lied over and over again about me and Judi Bari and they used the Oakland [Police Department] as their lackeys," said Cherney, who performed one of his activist songs on the witness stand.
"Suing the FBI is something more Americans need to be involved with."
On the courthouse steps, Darlene Comingore, executor of Bari's estate, said the verdict was "really beyond our wildest dreams. This jury got it .... We hope the FBI in Oakland and all the police departments out there that think they can violate people's rights now know that they can't get away with it."
Defense attorneys declined comment as they left court. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington said his agency was reviewing the verdict and "would decide in the near future what our next step will be."
Later in the afternoon, Oakland Deputy City Atty. Bill Simmons called the verdict disappointing and said the city will consider an appeal.
"As to much of the verdict, especially the 1st Amendment findings, we are just not able to understand what evidence they've relied on to come to those findings," Simmons said.
Judge Wilken dropped two FBI defendants from the complaint for lack of evidence at the end of testimony. The jury cleared a third FBI defendant of any violation.
But six other defendants, three with the FBI and three with the Oakland police, were found to have violated Bari's or Cherney's civil rights to varying degrees.
In deciding liability, the jury placed the heaviest blame on Clyde M. Sims, an Oakland police lieutenant who headed his department's investigation of the car bombing, FBI Agent John Reikes, who headed the terrorism squad in San Francisco, and Frank Doyle, an FBI bomb specialist.
Other defendants implicated in some way were the FBI's Philip Sena and Oakland Police Officers Robert Chenault and Michael Sitterud.
The jury concluded that Bari's 4th Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure had been violated, as well as her 1st Amendment right of freedom of expression.
The jury was hung on whether Cherney's 4th Amendment rights had been violated in connection with his arrest, but agreed they had been violated by a search warrant for his home. The panel also agreed that his 1st Amendment rights had been violated.
The jury rejected claims that the defendants had engaged in a conspiracy to deprive Bari and Cherney of their rights.
Dennis Cunningham, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, speculated that the conspiracy charge may have seemed superfluous to the jury. "It really doesn't detract from [the verdict] much," he said. "The fact is that substantial violations were established."
Cunningham, one of a team of attorneys who had worked on the case for years, said it is unusual for a civil rights lawsuit involving political activists to succeed.
"I've had a lot of such cases and most of them have not been that successful," he said. But the behavior of authorities in the Bari case "was really calculated," Cunningham said. "They had to really go out of their way to do this ... and I think the jury comprehended that in a full way."
Judge Wilken instructed the jury of eight women and two men not to talk to the media after the verdict.
At the time of the bombing, Bari and Cherney were organizing "Redwood Summer," a series of protests against the logging of old-growth redwoods. The case has never been solved.
During six weeks of testimony, the plaintiffs painted law enforcement as so eager to incriminate Bari and Cherney that they ignored death threats the pair had received and never bothered to conduct a thorough investigation.
The bombing put Bari in the hospital for two months and left her with permanent injuries. Cherney, a front-seat passenger in the car, suffered minor injuries.
The two key claims upon which investigators based the arrests were later contradicted or could not be proven: that nails wrapped around the crudely made pipe bomb matched those found in Bari's home and that the device went off when it was sitting in open view on the car's rear floorboard.
The FBI crime lab subsequently concluded that the bomb had exploded under Bari's seat. And prosecutors found the nails had been manufactured in such large batches that a close match was impossible.
Though charges were never filed against Bari and Cherney, they complained the arrests and ensuing publicity forever damned them in the public eye as violent terrorists who had blown themselves up.
Bari gave a videotaped deposition shortly before her death. Parts of it were presented during the trial on large-screen monitors in the courtroom.
Cherney, shorn of the bushy North Woods beard he had at the time of the bombing, took the stand, at one point performing "Spike a Tree for Jesus" for the jury.
During closing statements, Cherney's attorneys apologized for the song, conceding that it might have been a bit much for a federal courtroom.
In testimony, FBI and Oakland Police Department defendants both pointed to the other agency as the one that rushed to judgment in the arrests.
Defense attorneys also said their clients had handled the investigation properly, and had ample reason to arrest Bari and Cherney.
They cited provocative statements by Cherney as evidence that he was not the peaceful environmental organizer he presented himself to be.
In a 1990 network television interview, Cherney had said that if he were terminally ill, he would strap explosives to himself and blow up a dam or corporate headquarters after hours.
Heroes to many in the environmental movement, Bari and Cherney were viewed widely as dangerous radicals by management and workers in the California timber industry.
Mary Bullwinkel, spokeswoman for Humboldt County-based Pacific Lumber Co., a longtime target of the Earth First! organization, said the company had no comment on the verdict.
But environmental groups in Northern California were encouraged by the jury's decision and substantial award.
"Environmental groups will be hardened and empowered by this decision," said Dana Stolzman, a member of the Environmental Protection Information Center, a Mendocino County-based advocacy group for the protection of old-growth forests.
Stolzman said the 1990 arrests of Bari and Cherney had a temporary chilling effect on the environmental movement.
The verdict, Stolzman said, "affirms that the 1st Amendment rights should be upheld. People should be able to advocate the protection of ancient redwoods without risking their lives."
*
Alexander reported from Oakland, Boxall from Los Angeles. Also contributing was Times staff writer Rone Tempest.
Earth First! Pair Win Jury Award
Courts: Panel finds FBI, Oakland police violated their rights in 1990 car-bombing case.
By BETTINA BOXALL and KAREN ALEXANDER, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
OAKLAND -- OAKLAND -- Ending a two-month trial and handing Earth First! activist Judi Bari a posthumous vindication, a federal jury awarded $2.9 million to her estate Tuesday after finding FBI agents and Oakland police officers violated her civil rights in their handling of a car-bombing investigation 12 years ago.
Bari, who died of breast cancer in 1997, and fellow activist Darryl Cherney were arrested for transporting explosives after a pipe bomb blew up in Bari's car in May 1990, severely injuring her.
Prosecutors later declined to press charges and the two sued, complaining that the government had framed them and engaged in a smear campaign to discredit their movement against redwood logging on the North Coast. A U.S. District Court jury deliberated for more than three weeks before reading its verdict around noon Tuesday from a complicated, 21-page form. The jurors awarded Cherney $1.5 million in damages.
Bari's attorneys and supporters hugged and cried after the jury was excused. A few dozen environmental activists waved placards and cheered as the panel left the federal building in downtown Oakland.
The trial was seen by many on the political left as a test of broader allegations that the government unfairly disrupted the activities of radical groups beginning in the 1960s.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken rejected the plaintiffs' effort to make the trial a platform for such issues, including counterintelligence against the Black Panthers. But the victors still found in the verdict a broad condemnation of the FBI and other authorities.
"The FBI lied over and over again about me and Judi Bari and they used the Oakland [Police Department] as their lackeys," said Cherney, who performed one of his activist songs on the witness stand.
"Suing the FBI is something more Americans need to be involved with."
On the courthouse steps, Darlene Comingore, executor of Bari's estate, said the verdict was "really beyond our wildest dreams. This jury got it .... We hope the FBI in Oakland and all the police departments out there that think they can violate people's rights now know that they can't get away with it."
Defense attorneys declined comment as they left court. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington said his agency was reviewing the verdict and "would decide in the near future what our next step will be."
Later in the afternoon, Oakland Deputy City Atty. Bill Simmons called the verdict disappointing and said the city will consider an appeal.
"As to much of the verdict, especially the 1st Amendment findings, we are just not able to understand what evidence they've relied on to come to those findings," Simmons said.
Judge Wilken dropped two FBI defendants from the complaint for lack of evidence at the end of testimony. The jury cleared a third FBI defendant of any violation.
But six other defendants, three with the FBI and three with the Oakland police, were found to have violated Bari's or Cherney's civil rights to varying degrees.
In deciding liability, the jury placed the heaviest blame on Clyde M. Sims, an Oakland police lieutenant who headed his department's investigation of the car bombing, FBI Agent John Reikes, who headed the terrorism squad in San Francisco, and Frank Doyle, an FBI bomb specialist.
Other defendants implicated in some way were the FBI's Philip Sena and Oakland Police Officers Robert Chenault and Michael Sitterud.
The jury concluded that Bari's 4th Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure had been violated, as well as her 1st Amendment right of freedom of expression.
The jury was hung on whether Cherney's 4th Amendment rights had been violated in connection with his arrest, but agreed they had been violated by a search warrant for his home. The panel also agreed that his 1st Amendment rights had been violated.
The jury rejected claims that the defendants had engaged in a conspiracy to deprive Bari and Cherney of their rights.
Dennis Cunningham, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, speculated that the conspiracy charge may have seemed superfluous to the jury. "It really doesn't detract from [the verdict] much," he said. "The fact is that substantial violations were established."
Cunningham, one of a team of attorneys who had worked on the case for years, said it is unusual for a civil rights lawsuit involving political activists to succeed.
"I've had a lot of such cases and most of them have not been that successful," he said. But the behavior of authorities in the Bari case "was really calculated," Cunningham said. "They had to really go out of their way to do this ... and I think the jury comprehended that in a full way."
Judge Wilken instructed the jury of eight women and two men not to talk to the media after the verdict.
At the time of the bombing, Bari and Cherney were organizing "Redwood Summer," a series of protests against the logging of old-growth redwoods. The case has never been solved.
During six weeks of testimony, the plaintiffs painted law enforcement as so eager to incriminate Bari and Cherney that they ignored death threats the pair had received and never bothered to conduct a thorough investigation.
The bombing put Bari in the hospital for two months and left her with permanent injuries. Cherney, a front-seat passenger in the car, suffered minor injuries.
The two key claims upon which investigators based the arrests were later contradicted or could not be proven: that nails wrapped around the crudely made pipe bomb matched those found in Bari's home and that the device went off when it was sitting in open view on the car's rear floorboard.
The FBI crime lab subsequently concluded that the bomb had exploded under Bari's seat. And prosecutors found the nails had been manufactured in such large batches that a close match was impossible.
Though charges were never filed against Bari and Cherney, they complained the arrests and ensuing publicity forever damned them in the public eye as violent terrorists who had blown themselves up.
Bari gave a videotaped deposition shortly before her death. Parts of it were presented during the trial on large-screen monitors in the courtroom.
Cherney, shorn of the bushy North Woods beard he had at the time of the bombing, took the stand, at one point performing "Spike a Tree for Jesus" for the jury.
During closing statements, Cherney's attorneys apologized for the song, conceding that it might have been a bit much for a federal courtroom.
In testimony, FBI and Oakland Police Department defendants both pointed to the other agency as the one that rushed to judgment in the arrests.
Defense attorneys also said their clients had handled the investigation properly, and had ample reason to arrest Bari and Cherney.
They cited provocative statements by Cherney as evidence that he was not the peaceful environmental organizer he presented himself to be.
In a 1990 network television interview, Cherney had said that if he were terminally ill, he would strap explosives to himself and blow up a dam or corporate headquarters after hours.
Heroes to many in the environmental movement, Bari and Cherney were viewed widely as dangerous radicals by management and workers in the California timber industry.
Mary Bullwinkel, spokeswoman for Humboldt County-based Pacific Lumber Co., a longtime target of the Earth First! organization, said the company had no comment on the verdict.
But environmental groups in Northern California were encouraged by the jury's decision and substantial award.
"Environmental groups will be hardened and empowered by this decision," said Dana Stolzman, a member of the Environmental Protection Information Center, a Mendocino County-based advocacy group for the protection of old-growth forests.
Stolzman said the 1990 arrests of Bari and Cherney had a temporary chilling effect on the environmental movement.
The verdict, Stolzman said, "affirms that the 1st Amendment rights should be upheld. People should be able to advocate the protection of ancient redwoods without risking their lives."
*
Alexander reported from Oakland, Boxall from Los Angeles. Also contributing was Times staff writer Rone Tempest.
Once again , not blue skys words.
This whole story makes me sick and I can't believe the amount of money they walked away with. Environmentalists are walking the streets here proclaiming victory for their cause. They claim a lot of negativity was directed toward them about this and now they are redeemed and are gaining support.
quote:Empowered to terrorize the citizens of the United States some more!
"Environmental groups will be hardened and empowered by this decision," said Dana Stolzman
One wonders if the OJ Simpson jurors have started hiring themselves out for other trials!
I guess the plantiffs are claiming that someone "planted" the bomb?
Gee, if you start saying things like,
quote:... it's no wonder the cops considered them dangerous.
he would strap explosives to himself and blow up a dam or corporate headquarters after hours.
Vor
I find it strange. It is implied that someone from the government planted the bomb. Do you really think that if that was the case, they would have left any survivors?
Earth First. These are the same morons who keep preventing logging companies from doing their jobs. Of corse, a major fire can wipe out tens of thousands of acres of forest land in a matter of hours. We don't hear much from them about that.
Look on the bright side: she's dead.
EarthFirst! again, check this out.
Missoula city firefighters and police officers pull an Earth First! protester to safety after he and a
female protester lowered themselves from the Madison Street Bridge with ropes attached to a
logging truck stopped by other protesters on the bridge in Missoula on Wednesday. The dangling
protesters unfurled a banner decrying globalization.
Photo By TOM BAUER/Missoulian
By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
Earth Firsters snare truck, hang off bridge
While their friends stopped a truck loaded with 40 burned-black pine logs from the Bitterroot National
Forest, two Earth First! protesters attached ropes to the rig and lowered themselves over the Madison
Street Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, dangling above the Clark Fork River and unfurling a banner
decrying "globalization."
The protest, aimed at salvage logging in the Bitterroot forest, earned criminal charges for seven members of
Wild Rockies Earth First!, two of whom face felony charges because their stunt endangered rescuers' lives.
Throughout the 90-minute spectacle, driver Carl Schlapman of Darby remained in the cab of his logging
truck, engine off. Yes, he said, he was a little angry, but more frustrated by the continuing - and increasingly
dangerous - protests against logging in burned areas of the Bitterroot.
"There's got to be some common sense," Schlapman said. "We can't leave stuff like this lying around. These
trees are dead. They are burned. We have a legal right to haul them out of the forest."
Schlapman was making his second run of the day from the Robbins Gulch timber sale near Darby to
Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co.'s mill in Seeley Lake when protesters jumped in front of the truck as he
crossed the Madison Street Bridge.
"They had a sign saying 'We're Tied to Your Truck. Don't Move,' " he said. "They were waiting for me up
on the bridge. They just jumped out in front of the truck, so I had to stop."
Loggers were warned this spring to be on the watch for protesters, but nothing in his 30 years of log hauling
prepared Schlapman for Wednesday's events. "Never," he said, "have I seen anything like this."
The bridge shook, and his truck along with it, as the two dangling protesters lowered themselves ever closer
to the river's dizzying rush, ignoring calls from police and firefighters to pull themselves back to safety.
The duo, a man and woman with look-alike braided pigtails, worked for nearly 30 minutes to unfurl a
king-size banner claiming "Globalization Kills Our Forests." As a fire boat arrived on the river below, the
protesters pulled particleboard planks from their backpacks - makeshift seats to make the dangling more
comfortable - and sipped water from plastic bottles.
"Are you going to give me any trouble when I get down there?" shouted firefighter Mike Sauerbier.
"No," answered the young woman.
"How about you?" he asked the young man.
"No."
"Good answer."
A few moments later, however, the young man said he would not willingly get into the waiting rescue boat.
The plan changed. The protesters started whooping, as did their friends waiting on shore.
Fire Capt. Chuck Williford explained the new plan to a growing huddle of reporters. "They are
demonstrating a little violent behavior," he said. "We are not going to risk our guys by putting them over the
bridge."
Now, Williford said, firefighters would try to pull the man to the bridge top. If he started letting out rope,
they'd just keep pulling. If he fell into the river, they'd pull him out of the current.
"We'll do everything in our power to have a successful rescue," he said. "But we don't know what they are
capable of doing, or what they have in mind."
By then, the woman was near enough to the water that the three firefighters in the rescue boat were able to
convince her to take their offer of safety - and a ride to shore, where police officers waited with handcuffs.
The young man remained uncooperative, never giving his name despite Sauerbier's repeated requests,
refusing even to extend his arm when he was even with the bridge-top railing. Finally Sauerbier's request
became a command: "Give me your hand!"
"I am willing to sacrifice anything," the man said, still hanging above the water. "They shouldn't put their
lives in danger trying to rescue me. They don't need to. I am trying to bring attention to the Bitterroot
salvage scam."
What about the compromise agreement signed by environmentalists, loggers and the Forest Service earlier
this year, allowing some salvage logging while putting other proposals on hold? reporters asked the man.
What's wrong with putting some of the dead timber to use?
"Fires are natural," the man yelled. "The forest will grow back. We should leave it alone."
With a final heave, a half-dozen police officers and firefighters yanked the man over the railing to safety,
where he was handcuffed, then disentangled from his ropes.
"It's frustrating because there are a lot of other ways to demonstrate," Sauerbier said later. "If we'd had
another call, a heart attack say, these people would have put someone else at risk. They put everyone here
at risk as well. Putting anyone else's life in danger for a cause that you believe in is just flat wrong."
At the bridge's edge, Earth Firster Delyla Wilson waited - out of the way lest she, too, be arrested. She
arrived after the two were hanging over the bridge, she said, and did not know their names.
However, she did know the reason for the protest: "the destruction of the Bitterroot National Forest."
She also knew why the event occurred on Wednesday: "Because the forest changed the rules so none of
the violations we have documented on these sales are violations anymore." (Bitterroot forest officials
announced Tuesday that several of the salvage sales have been modified to allow more logging this
summer.)
This week's Global Justice Action Summit in Missoula also got Earth Firsters to thinking about the link
between logging and globalization, Wilson said. "The Bitterroot National Forest is being deforested not for
the local community, but for these global corporations and their profits."
Meanwhile, Schlapman got the go-ahead to continue on to the mill in Seeley Lake, shaking his head, a bit
more irritated after 90 minutes locked inside his truck.
"What do you think about all of this?" a reporter shouted.
"It's a bunch of bull," came the reply, as Schlapman rolled the window back shut and motored slowly off the
bridge.
At afternoon's end, all seven protesters remained in jail, although five had already appeared in Municipal
Court, pleaded innocent to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and pedestrian in a roadway, and
needed only post $100 bond to get out of jail.
They were: Nadia Katz-Wise, 16, Boise, Idaho; Molly Karp, 20, Moscow, Idaho; Steven Chadwick, 21,
Glenview, Ill.; Austin Reedy, 19, Bloomington, Ind.; and Jason Buckendorf, whose age and address were
not known.
The two protesters who dropped over the side of the bridge refused to give their names to police, so were
booked as John and Jane Doe. They face felony criminal endangerment charges because of the potential
harm faced by their rescuers and will be arraigned - and ordered to give their names - in Missoula Justice
Court on Thursday.
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com.
Missoula city firefighters and police officers pull an Earth First! protester to safety after he and a
female protester lowered themselves from the Madison Street Bridge with ropes attached to a
logging truck stopped by other protesters on the bridge in Missoula on Wednesday. The dangling
protesters unfurled a banner decrying globalization.
Photo By TOM BAUER/Missoulian
By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
Earth Firsters snare truck, hang off bridge
While their friends stopped a truck loaded with 40 burned-black pine logs from the Bitterroot National
Forest, two Earth First! protesters attached ropes to the rig and lowered themselves over the Madison
Street Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, dangling above the Clark Fork River and unfurling a banner
decrying "globalization."
The protest, aimed at salvage logging in the Bitterroot forest, earned criminal charges for seven members of
Wild Rockies Earth First!, two of whom face felony charges because their stunt endangered rescuers' lives.
Throughout the 90-minute spectacle, driver Carl Schlapman of Darby remained in the cab of his logging
truck, engine off. Yes, he said, he was a little angry, but more frustrated by the continuing - and increasingly
dangerous - protests against logging in burned areas of the Bitterroot.
"There's got to be some common sense," Schlapman said. "We can't leave stuff like this lying around. These
trees are dead. They are burned. We have a legal right to haul them out of the forest."
Schlapman was making his second run of the day from the Robbins Gulch timber sale near Darby to
Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co.'s mill in Seeley Lake when protesters jumped in front of the truck as he
crossed the Madison Street Bridge.
"They had a sign saying 'We're Tied to Your Truck. Don't Move,' " he said. "They were waiting for me up
on the bridge. They just jumped out in front of the truck, so I had to stop."
Loggers were warned this spring to be on the watch for protesters, but nothing in his 30 years of log hauling
prepared Schlapman for Wednesday's events. "Never," he said, "have I seen anything like this."
The bridge shook, and his truck along with it, as the two dangling protesters lowered themselves ever closer
to the river's dizzying rush, ignoring calls from police and firefighters to pull themselves back to safety.
The duo, a man and woman with look-alike braided pigtails, worked for nearly 30 minutes to unfurl a
king-size banner claiming "Globalization Kills Our Forests." As a fire boat arrived on the river below, the
protesters pulled particleboard planks from their backpacks - makeshift seats to make the dangling more
comfortable - and sipped water from plastic bottles.
"Are you going to give me any trouble when I get down there?" shouted firefighter Mike Sauerbier.
"No," answered the young woman.
"How about you?" he asked the young man.
"No."
"Good answer."
A few moments later, however, the young man said he would not willingly get into the waiting rescue boat.
The plan changed. The protesters started whooping, as did their friends waiting on shore.
Fire Capt. Chuck Williford explained the new plan to a growing huddle of reporters. "They are
demonstrating a little violent behavior," he said. "We are not going to risk our guys by putting them over the
bridge."
Now, Williford said, firefighters would try to pull the man to the bridge top. If he started letting out rope,
they'd just keep pulling. If he fell into the river, they'd pull him out of the current.
"We'll do everything in our power to have a successful rescue," he said. "But we don't know what they are
capable of doing, or what they have in mind."
By then, the woman was near enough to the water that the three firefighters in the rescue boat were able to
convince her to take their offer of safety - and a ride to shore, where police officers waited with handcuffs.
The young man remained uncooperative, never giving his name despite Sauerbier's repeated requests,
refusing even to extend his arm when he was even with the bridge-top railing. Finally Sauerbier's request
became a command: "Give me your hand!"
"I am willing to sacrifice anything," the man said, still hanging above the water. "They shouldn't put their
lives in danger trying to rescue me. They don't need to. I am trying to bring attention to the Bitterroot
salvage scam."
What about the compromise agreement signed by environmentalists, loggers and the Forest Service earlier
this year, allowing some salvage logging while putting other proposals on hold? reporters asked the man.
What's wrong with putting some of the dead timber to use?
"Fires are natural," the man yelled. "The forest will grow back. We should leave it alone."
With a final heave, a half-dozen police officers and firefighters yanked the man over the railing to safety,
where he was handcuffed, then disentangled from his ropes.
"It's frustrating because there are a lot of other ways to demonstrate," Sauerbier said later. "If we'd had
another call, a heart attack say, these people would have put someone else at risk. They put everyone here
at risk as well. Putting anyone else's life in danger for a cause that you believe in is just flat wrong."
At the bridge's edge, Earth Firster Delyla Wilson waited - out of the way lest she, too, be arrested. She
arrived after the two were hanging over the bridge, she said, and did not know their names.
However, she did know the reason for the protest: "the destruction of the Bitterroot National Forest."
She also knew why the event occurred on Wednesday: "Because the forest changed the rules so none of
the violations we have documented on these sales are violations anymore." (Bitterroot forest officials
announced Tuesday that several of the salvage sales have been modified to allow more logging this
summer.)
This week's Global Justice Action Summit in Missoula also got Earth Firsters to thinking about the link
between logging and globalization, Wilson said. "The Bitterroot National Forest is being deforested not for
the local community, but for these global corporations and their profits."
Meanwhile, Schlapman got the go-ahead to continue on to the mill in Seeley Lake, shaking his head, a bit
more irritated after 90 minutes locked inside his truck.
"What do you think about all of this?" a reporter shouted.
"It's a bunch of bull," came the reply, as Schlapman rolled the window back shut and motored slowly off the
bridge.
At afternoon's end, all seven protesters remained in jail, although five had already appeared in Municipal
Court, pleaded innocent to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and pedestrian in a roadway, and
needed only post $100 bond to get out of jail.
They were: Nadia Katz-Wise, 16, Boise, Idaho; Molly Karp, 20, Moscow, Idaho; Steven Chadwick, 21,
Glenview, Ill.; Austin Reedy, 19, Bloomington, Ind.; and Jason Buckendorf, whose age and address were
not known.
The two protesters who dropped over the side of the bridge refused to give their names to police, so were
booked as John and Jane Doe. They face felony criminal endangerment charges because of the potential
harm faced by their rescuers and will be arraigned - and ordered to give their names - in Missoula Justice
Court on Thursday.
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com.
Would've been a lot simpler to just cut the ropes and let their stinking carcasses return to mother Gaia.
quote:I thought you didn't believe in polluting.
Would've been a lot simpler to just cut the ropes and let their stinking carcasses return to mother Gaia.
The truck driver should have just run them over. It would be the equivalent of lubing his front axle.
their rights to peaceful assembly and for redress of grievances are protected under the bill of rights.
Your desire for the truck driver to run them over and lube his front end with their body fluids runs contrary to the spirit upon which this country was founded and has been defended by the lives of our forefathers. You should be ashamed.
Your desire for the truck driver to run them over and lube his front end with their body fluids runs contrary to the spirit upon which this country was founded and has been defended by the lives of our forefathers. You should be ashamed.
Peaceful assembly and redress of grievances??? Is that what you call risking Fire fighters lives and disruption of legal commerce.
You make me sick Blue!!!!
You make me sick Blue!!!!
Amendment 1:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I don't think this covers what those EarthFirst morons did. Unless this fits Bluesky's definition of "petitioning the government." It might as well; every other definition morphs to fit his bizarre agenda.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I don't think this covers what those EarthFirst morons did. Unless this fits Bluesky's definition of "petitioning the government." It might as well; every other definition morphs to fit his bizarre agenda.
By the way, DingleberrySky, if it was their "right" they wouldn't be arrested for it.
HEY BLU, IS THAT WHAT THOSE GANG BANGERS WERE DOING IN L.A. A FEW YEARS AGO WHEN REGINOLD DENNY STOPPED HIS TRUCK TO KEEP FROM RUNNING THEM OVER? YOU KNOW, THE ONES WHO DRAGGED HIM OUT OF HIS CONCRETE TRUCK AND BASHED HIS BRAINS IN WITH A BRICK.
DON'T YOU DARE START SPOUTING OFF ABOUT THEIR PROTECTED RIGHTS WHEN ALL THEY DO IS PROMOTE TERRORISM.
DON'T YOU DARE START SPOUTING OFF ABOUT THEIR PROTECTED RIGHTS WHEN ALL THEY DO IS PROMOTE TERRORISM.
BS, by that logic, a face to face debate with you could include beating the truth into you.
quote:It’s called food for the wildlife, and fertilizer for the earth.
Originally posted by JET:
quote:I thought you didn't believe in polluting.
Would've been a lot simpler to just cut the ropes and let their stinking carcasses return to mother Gaia.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluesky:
[QB]their rights to peaceful assembly and for redress of grievances are protected under the bill of rights.
He had about the same rights to tie himself with ropes to the truck, as the truck had to keep on driving. The trucker most have been an off roader. He just chilled, and didn’t want to hurt anyone. Lets see, the truck drive went home that night. Now who had the reservation to the Gray Bar Hotel?
[QB]their rights to peaceful assembly and for redress of grievances are protected under the bill of rights.
He had about the same rights to tie himself with ropes to the truck, as the truck had to keep on driving. The trucker most have been an off roader. He just chilled, and didn’t want to hurt anyone. Lets see, the truck drive went home that night. Now who had the reservation to the Gray Bar Hotel?
![[Cheese]](graemlins/cheese.gif)
quote:Actually, when our founding fathers started the revolution that created this country they were in violation of the established law at that time, which is why the English government sent soldiers over here to put them in their place.
Your desire for the truck driver to run them over and lube his front end with their body fluids runs contrary to the spirit upon which this country was founded and has been defended by the lives of our forefathers. You should be ashamed.
I'm all for peaceful assembly (GLAMIS CAMPING/RIDING!!!).
The EarthFirsters that tied themselves to the truck were in violation of the established law at this time, and were not intending peaceful assembly or even peaceful protest. I may disagree with them, but peaceful protest is fine with me.
I drove trucks for 20 years and 1 million miles without a chargable accident. While there were many times I was so angry I wanted to run over people/vehicles with all 80,000lbs., I never did. When I wrote that earlier, it was an attempt at black humor.
We're angry Blue. Don't you get that? Any of the greens? Understand that we're down-right-junk-yard-dog angry? We're in a pressure cooker. At what point do you think we're gonna blow?
[ 06-27-2002, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: Washroad ]
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