Free Republic

U.S. prosecutors are asking that convicted eco-arsonist Briana Waters be held in jail pending her sentencing in federal court because she was involved in another Earth Liberation Front arson at a horse ranch in California, according to court documents. The U.S. Attorney's Office says it will introduce evidence of her participation in that fire in hopes of ensuring a lengthy prison sentence for her conviction on two counts of arson stemming from a May 2001 fire at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture. Waters was convicted by a federal jury in Tacoma last week following four days of...

Do the crime, do the time. That’s the rule in this country; there’s no mommy exception. If there were, environmental radical Briana Waters might not be looking at hard time after her conviction in Tacoma on Thursday on two counts of arson. Waters, a winsome 32-year-old mother, used to a be member of a violent Earth Liberation Front cell known as “The Family.” The Family was into torching other people’s property – including homes – it considered threats to the environment. It did a lot of this. One of its acts of ecoterror was the burning of the University of...

TACOMA — Jurors weighing the fate of Briana Waters struggled with a charge that would have sent the 32-year-old mother and violin teacher to prison for 30 years. Their verdict, delivered Thursday in a packed federal courtroom, recognized her participation in the 2001 arson at a University of Washington research center, but also her limited role in the crime and the modest prison sentences expected to be given to others involved. The arson was committed in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. While jurors convicted the Oakland, Calif., woman of two counts of arson, they deadlocked on three other...

Three high-end houses in a Seattle suburb went up in smoke Monday and two others were damaged in the latest domestic terrorism by the Earth Liberation Front, a group of animal-rights and environmental wackos responsible for hundreds of arsons and other acts of sabotage in the Northwest over the past two decades. ELF and other anarchists opposed the development of environmentally friendly homes in Woodinville, Wash., because they were near the headwaters of Bear Creek, home to the endangered chinook salmon. No doubt the creek and adjoining wetlands and aquifer benefited greatly from the ash, soot and runoff from Monday's...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

TACOMA — A 32-year-old violin teacher from California was found guilty this morning of two counts of arson for the 2001 fire at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture. A federal jury found that Briana Waters, a former Olympia resident, was among a group of ecosaboteurs who torched the center in the predawn hours of May 21, 2001, causing about $1.5 million in damage. The center was later rebuilt at a cost of about $7 million. Waters faces up to five years in prison for each count of arson. But the jury, which had been deliberating since Friday...

Santa Cruz, Calif. (AP) -- The FBI is investigating possible links between animal-rights activists in Southern California and a weekend attack on the home of a University of California, Santa Cruz researcher. Patti Hanson, an FBI spokeswoman, said the bureau was looking into possible connections to "domestic terrorism." A demonstration by six masked protesters in front of the UCSC scientist's Westside home Sunday afternoon turned violent when the group pounded on the door and were confronted by the researcher's husband, police reported. The incident invited comparison to recent attacks on UCLA researchers that were linked to animal-rights groups. No one...

Woman recalls confrontations with witnessesTACOMA -- A 32-year-old violin teacher and mother accused of conspiring with members of an Earth Liberation Front eco-terrorist cell took the stand in her own defense Wednesday and flatly denied any involvement in the 2001 firebombing of a University of Washington research center. Briana Waters and her attorneys sought to portray the main witnesses against her -- convicted eco-terrorists -- as liars, motivated by a desire to cut decades off their sentences and by sexually triggered anger. Waters, of Oakland, Calif., wore a white blouse with long blond hair tumbling down to her shoulders. "Did...

SANTA CRUZ - A UC Santa Cruz faculty member whose biomedical research using animals sheds light on the causes of breast cancer and neurological diseases was the target of an attack Sunday afternoon, reportedly by animal rights activists. UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal confirmed late Monday that an off-campus home invasion by six masked intruders occurred at a faculty member's home. In a statement, Blumenthal called the incident "very disturbing." Santa Cruz police reported that six people wearing bandanas tried to break into a Westside home just before 1 p.m., and that one of the family members, not the faculty member,...

Briana Waters is on trial in Tacoma for her alleged role in the 2001 arson at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture. It was one of a number of incidents of vandalism in the Northwest attributed to Earth Liberation Front's campaign to rid the world of things that aren't "wild." So what is wild?On the afternoon of May 21, 2001, investigator Cheryl Glenn of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) walked through the charred remains of several buildings at the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore. Periodically she would stop, adjust her gloves, get down...

Los Angeles (AP) -- The University of California went to court Thursday to try to keep animal rights activists away from UCLA employees who say they have been threatened because of their research. Three times since June 2006, Molotov cocktail-type devices have been left near the homes of faculty members who oversee or participate in research that involves animals, according to a statement from the University of California, Los Angeles. Researchers' homes have also been vandalized and they have received threatening phone calls and e-mails, according to the university. On at least one occasion a faculty member received a package...

Monday, February 11, 2008 SEATTLE -- Briana Waters says she isn't sure where she was early on May 21, 2001, but there's one place she wasn't: crouching in the bushes near a research center at the University of Washington, serving as a lookout for her fellow Earth Liberation Front activists as they set firebombs that illuminated the night sky and caused millions of dollars in damage. Prosecutors say that's exactly where she was, and they are intent on proving it during a trial that begins today at U.S. District Court in Tacoma. Of more than a dozen environmental and animal-rights...

The home of a primate researcher was firebombed on Tuesday, marking the second attack at the same residence in the past four months, authorities said. An incendiary device charred the front door of the home of Edythe London, who is a professor of psychiatry and molecular and medical pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. No one was at home when the attack occurred, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but animal rights activists are suspected of carrying out previous efforts at the homes of UCLA scientists who use animals in their research....

In May 2001, members of a Northwest group used arson to advance its agenda. They set fire to the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington because they believed one of the researchers was genetically engineering poplar trees. He wasn't. The arsonists destroyed plants and the research of several people other than the man whose work they targeted. None of their goals was served by the violence. "Misguided" is the word, I believe. I'd even call them ecoterrorists. The crime is back in the news because a woman accused of acting as a lookout for the Earth Liberation...

'They were not afraid of us,' woman says. Neither the three women nor their dogs heard the pack of wolves creeping up behind them as they jogged on Artillery Road in the frigid morning air. One minute it was peaceful. Then she glanced back and saw the pack of about eight wolves spanning the road, only a few feet behind. A melee ensued, accompanied by screaming, snarling, blood and pepper spray. "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been through."... The increasingly emboldened Elmendorf wolf pack is blamed for killing one dog and wounding another in Eagle River this...

Fired UCSD worker tied to bomb hoax, arrested By Susan Shroder UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM 4:32 p.m. December 8, 2007 A UCSD employee who was fired from his job as a lab technician last week was arrested Saturday in connection with a bomb hoax Wednesday that targeted a research building on the La Jolla campus where he formerly worked. Timothy Bryon Kalka, 50, of San Diego, was arrested without incident about 6 a.m. Saturday at his San Diego residence by members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth said. Kalka is charged in a federal arrest...

Animal-rights saboteurs have claimed responsibility for vandalizing the Portland home of a research scientist who uses monkeys to study the causes of premature birth in humans. In a communique obtained by The Oregonian today, the Animal Liberation Front acknowledged striking two autos owned by Dr. Miles Novy with spray-paint graffiti and paint stripper. "Novy's reproductive research on primates has resulted in this senseless torture of one of natures most magnificant creatures," ALF saboteurs wrote in a message sent to the Animal Liberation Press Office. "This blatant disregard for the earth, animals and it's resources shall not go unseen by the...

Calculating the Risks in Pakistan A small group of U.S. military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart. The secret exercise — conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject — was one of several such games the U.S. government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons: How many troops might be required for a military intervention in...

More endangered Mexican gray wolves have been targeted for removal from the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ... The wolf reintroduction program requires the permanent removal of any wolf linked to three livestock killings a year ... Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown says the Aspen Pack has killed a horse and five cows since the beginning of the year.

PETA, ELF, ALF are people who need to be taken out of society so we can enjoy life as we see fit. Legislators are next.

BERLIN (AFP) - German conservationists on Monday condemned the freeing of some 17,000 minks from a fur farm, apparently by animal rights activists, saying they would starve in the wild. "It was a political act, and it has nothing to do with protecting the environment," said Joern Ehlers from the German chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). "These animals are going to die of hunger." Minks are carnivores who feed on small animals and those freed from the farm in Grabow, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Berlin, risked disturbing the ecological balance in the region,...

There's this community center that I frequent that's ran by hippies. The place provides many good services in the community, including leading food drives for the less than fortunate, however, there's a problem. This community center has posted a picture of a person that's been helping the government crack down on the environmental terrorists known as the Animal Liberation Front on their wall, telling people not to talk to the FBI if they're questioned about this person. They are clearly breaking the law. Can I report these people to the FBI because they're clearly out to cause this poor man...

Snatched Hunting Dog May Have Been Slated For Death At PETA's Norfolk Headquarters. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employee Andrea Florence Benoit will be arraigned today in Southampton County (VA) Circuit Court on a felony charge of stealing a local Animal Control officer's hunting dog. The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom, which tracks PETA's program of killing adoptable dogs and cats at PETAkillsAnimals.com, is calling on the animal rights group to stop playing God with other people's pets. Benoit was indicted by a Grand Jury on July 16. Benoit was arrested in October 2006, shortly after allegedly...

THE HOME OF DR. ARTHUR ROSENBAUM isn’t hard to find. He lives a few blocks south of Sunset Boulevard, near the UCLA campus, in a white two-story house with a front yard jammed with aspen trees. There is a short driveway on the side of the home, and during the evening, a bright, white light illuminates the carport. If someone wants to sabotage the doctor’s car under the cover of night, a flashlight isn’t needed. On Sunday, June 24, just that kind of person struck. Rosenbaum, a highly regarded pediatric ophthalmologist who had been regularly harassed by animal-rights activists for...

11:14 AM, Wednesday, August 1, 2007 A federal judge on Wednesday reimposed a sentence of four years and three months on Jonathon Christopher Mark Paul, the last of 10 defendants indicted in Eugene for arson in environmental causes. Paul’s lawyer had challenged the sentence after a hearing June 5. Paul, a widely known environmental activists from Southern Oregon, again renounced arson as an activist tactic in a statement in court on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Anne Aiken rebuffed four legal challenges to the sentence and required Paul to read the book “Three Cups of Tea” and to write a book...

A man who set firebombs in seven large SUVs last March pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday. Grant Barnes... using the methods of the eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front... When Barnes was arrested, police found a box of seven of the devices in the back of his car. Police said they are replicas of bombs shown on ELF's Web site.

Tell the NFL to Suspend Michael Vick! NFL star Michael Vick, of the Atlanta Falcons, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on felony dogfighting charges. Vick is charged with violating federal laws against competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting, and conducting the enterprise across state lines. In a raid conducted on April 25 and 26, local and state law enforcement officials found 70 dogs—including at least 60 pit bulls and many dogs who reportedly were neglected, scarred, and malnourished—on quarterback Vick's rural Surry County, Virginia, property. Some of the animals evidently bear scars and injuries,...

A Lake Wanda bear activist was arrested early Tuesday morning for tampering with a bear trap by spreading human urine around it. It was just the latest in a series of incidents in the Highland Lakes neighborhood — not only between residents and bears, but between residents and bear activists — in what has been dubbed the county's "ground zero" for bear activity. Albert Kazemian, 50, was arrested at ten after midnight on Tuesday, after Department of Environmental Protection Fish and Wildlife officers observed trespassing on a residence and pouring a jug of human urine around the trap... Darlene Yuhas,...

A gasoline-filled device in a car bomb fails to go off. Authorities investigating another bombing incident find that after a first bomb exploded, a second bomb was timed to go off when first responders arrived. A recent event in the United Kingdom? Yes, but also in California. Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that a bomb was discovered outside the Westside home of Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum, the chief of pediatric ophthalmology at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute. The car bomb failed to explode, despite apparent attempts to detonate it. In 2003, two bombs exploded at biotech firm Chiron's Emeryville...

Fires Have Too Much In Common GRANDE RONDE, Ore. - The Polk County Sheriff's Office is investigating two fires in the Grande Ronde area that took place within 24 hours of each other. The first fire was happened just before 4 a.m. Monday at Grand Ronde Elementary School. The fire at the school did minor damage and was discovered after a fire alarm sounded. The second fire took place at the Church of the Nazarene just across the street from Grande Ronde Elementary at almost exactly the same time Tuesday. The fire was reported by a passerby around 4 a.m....

Published: Sunday, July 1, 2007 No other book club could approach its diversity. There was a trust fund kid and a Dumpster diver. There were potheads, growers and dealers. There were anarchists and longtime social activists. There was a straight-A student, a high school dropout, a computer geek and a young father reportedly addicted to heroin. Their "Book Club" was anything but typical. It was where many of them met - not to share literature and poetry, but to study arson, sabotage and subterfuge. Most went on to radical activism in a group that referred to itself as "The Family."...

LONGMONT, Colo. -- A homeowner was arrested early Sunday morning after more than 200 chemical compounds and liquids were found in his home, several of which could have caused significant damage if detonated, Longmont police officials said. Ronald Swerlein, 50, was arrested around 4 a.m. near his home as he tried to get back into his residence. Police said they found Swerlein returning to the crime scene with a screwdriver and a flashlight. During execution of a search warrant, police said they found many blasting agents and highly flammable fuels and oxidizers in the home that presented significant hazard concerns....

Denver police have arrested a 24-year-old man in connection with at least two fires involving Hummer sport utility vehicles in recent days. An officer arrested Grant Barnes during a routine traffic stop about 11:30 p.m., after finding suspicious materials in his vehicle. He was in the same neighborhood, police said. A couple in Denver's Cherry Creek neighborhood said their Hummer was engulfed in flames earlier this week, and the flames spread to another car parked nearby. It's similar to an incident last Saturday when neighbors said they awoke to find Hummer in flames. According to police, the man is being...

Magazines from ‘domestic terrorism threat’ found ... Ronald Swerlein kept magazines in his home from the Animal Liberation Front, a group the FBI calls a “leading domestic terrorism threat,” ... Police first searched the 50-year-old’s home over the weekend and arrested him Sunday on suspicion of possessing and making explosives. According to a search warrant inventory, police seized four magazines from the Animal Liberation Front from Swerlein’s home. The warrant requesting the search said the magazines describe arsons and use of explosives claimed by members of the group, who typically remain anonymous. The group’s Web site states that individuals work...

Posted: 3:44 PM, Monday, June 4, 2007 Saying she is unsure of the sincerity of his remorse, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken on Monday sentenced Daniel Gerard McGowan to seven years in federal prison for his role in a string of arsons by underground radical environmentalists. McGowan, 33, cited his work in community and social justice groups since leaving the underground in 2001. However, prosecutors played tapes, secretly recorded by an informant, in which McGowan seems to revel in past illegal deeds by extremists. The final of 10 defendants in the Operation Backfire case is scheduled for sentencing Tuesday. Read...

Two more eco-terrorists sentenced Last modified Friday, June 1, 2007 7:40 PM PDT By: Associated Press - EUGENE, Ore. -- A federal judge sentenced two women to prison Thursday for their roles in arson fires around the West that caused more than $40 million in damage over a five-year period. Suzanne Savoie and Kendall Tankersley were the fifth and sixth of 10 radical environmentalists to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Eugene after they pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy. All were members of an underground cell of the Earth Liberation Front known as "The Family." U.S. District Judge...

Friday, June 1, 2007 Saying she found no remorse in either defendant, U.S. District Court Ann Aiken on Friday sentenced Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block to seven years, eight months in federal prison for their role in a string of arsons. Zacher and Block are among four defendants who made plea deals with federal prosecutors but declined to name names of co-conspirators in the Operation Backfire investigations. Aiken said the defendants wanted to be martyrs and be hailed as heroes in the cause and yet receive some consideration in their sentencing deals. However, Aiken declined to further lower the sentence...

May 31, 2007 EUGENE — A federal judge today sentenced an Applegate woman to more than four years in prison for her role in a string of arsons around the West that caused more than $40 million in damage over a five-year period. Suzanne Savoie was the fifth of 10 radical environmentalists to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Eugene after they pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy charges. All were members of an underground cell of the Earth Liberation Front known as “The Family.” The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken was eight months less than...

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 A radical environmentalist from Canada was sentenced Tuesday to 37 months in federal prison, along with a judge’s admonishment that he consider taking a class on America’s system of democracy. Darren Todd Thurston, 37, was the fourth of 10 Operation Backfire defendants to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Eugene — and the first to avoid being labeled a “terrorist” under federal terrorism law. He plead guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of arson in connection with damage done to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse Facility in Litchfield, Calif.,...

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has taken down a Web site it operated that included gay rights and anti-war organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists. The Web site identified different types of terrorists, and included a list of groups it believed could spawn terrorists. The list also included environmentalists, animal rights advocates and abortion opponents. The director of the department, Jim Walker, said his agency received a number of calls and e-mails from people who said they felt the site unfairly targeted certain people just because of their beliefs. He said he plans to put...

MONTGOMERY, ALA. — The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has taken down a website it operated that included gay-rights and antiwar organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists. The website identified different types of terrorists and included a list of groups it suggested could spawn terrorists. The list also included environmentalists, animal rights advocates and abortion opponents. Howard Bayliss, chairman of the gay-rights group Equality Alabama, said he didn't understand why gay-rights advocates would be on the list. "Our group has only had peaceful demonstrations. I'm deeply concerned we've been profiled in this discriminatory matter," Bayliss said....

Chelsea Gerlach, who joined the radical-environmental movement as a teenager, was sentenced today in Oregon to nine years in prison for her prominent role in torching a Vail ski lodge and five other so-called "eco-terror" attacks. Gerlach, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, destruction of an energy facility and 23 counts of arson after being identified by an informant as a major player in a six-year reign of attacks on government, business and research facilities. As a member of a small clandestine group that called itself "the Family," Gerlach and others helped cell leader Bill Rodgers in October of 1998 haul...

5/24/2007, 6:59 p.m. PT EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge Thursday sentenced Animal Liberation Front arsonist Kevin Tubbs to prison for more than 12 years, rejecting arguments that he was a minor player just trying to save animals and protect the earth. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken declared that four of the nine fires Tubbs was involved in — a forest ranger station, a police substation, a dealership selling SUVs and a tree farm — were acts of terrorism intended to influence the conduct of the government or retaliate for government acts. "Fear and intimidation can play no part...

A Denver judge halved the bond today for a suspected eco-terrorist accused of setting firebombs in large SUVs after his father, a Colorado Springs lawyer, agreed to post the bond. Bond for Grant Barnes, 24, was reduced from $200,000 to $100,000 after defense attorney Phil Cherner told the judge that Barne’s father, Thomas Barnes, a former deputy district attorney in El Paso County, would ensure that his son appears in court. Prosecutor Ryan Younggren said he and the victims objected to a bond reduction because Grant Barnes might plant more firebombs if he gets out. Grant Barnes, suspected of using...

Environmentalist Gets 13 Years In Arson Fires ASSOCIATED PRESS May 24, 2007 EUGENE, Ore. – Declaring fires set at a police station, an SUV dealer and a tree farm to be acts of terrorism, a federal judge yesterday sentenced the first of 10 members of a radical environmental group to 13 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken commended Stanislas Meyerhoff for having the courage to “do the right thing” by informing on his fellow arsonists after his arrest, but declared that his efforts to save the Earth by setting fires were misguided and cowardly, and contributed to an...

Crime - A federal judge says a string of fires set by The Family contained the "elements of terrorism"Thursday, May 24, 2007 A federal judge in Eugene sentenced an eco-saboteur on Wednesday to 13 years in prison for a serial arson campaign that rocked the West, ruling that three of his fire bombings were acts of terrorism. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken said that Stanislas G. Meyerhoff, 29, was eligible for a life term. But she sentenced him based in part on recommendations of government prosecutors, who had sought nearly 16 years imprisonment. Meyerhoff was the first of 10 convicted...

EUGENE, Ore. - Their guilt isn't in question. The six men and four women already admitted being involved in a series of arson fires that did $40 million in damage to research facilities, a ski resort and other businesses in the West. But are they terrorists? A federal was to hear arguments Tuesday on a motion by the government to add a so-called terrorism enhancement to their sentencing. Prosecutors want Judge Ann Aiken to declare the group terrorists — something defense attorneys argue has never happened in 1,200 arsons nationwide claimed by Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. The...

EUGENE, Ore. - Their guilt isn't in question. The six men and four women already admitted being involved in a series of arson fires that did $40 million in damage to research facilities, a ski resort and other businesses in the West. But are they terrorists as the government says? A federal judge was set to hear arguments Tuesday on a motion by the government to add a so-called terrorism enhancement to their sentences. Prosecutors want Judge Ann Aiken to declare the group terrorists — something defense attorneys argue has never happened in 1,200 arsons nationwide claimed by Earth Liberation...

Government seeks terrorist label for arsonists 08:32 AM MST on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 By JEFF BARNARD / AP Environmental Writer EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- Chelsea Gerlach was 16 when she attended an Earth First! gathering in Idaho, where she met an instructor in monkey wrenching - sabotage in the name of protecting the environment - who called himself Avalon. According to federal prosecutors, she developed a crush on William C. Rodgers, and joined his cell of the Earth Liberation Front in Eugene known as The Family, which later became responsible for 20 arsons around the West that did $40...

Defense attorneys expressed outrage Tuesday when federal prosecutors compared 10 Earth Liberation Front arsonists who are awaiting sentencing to Ku Klux Klan arsonists. The six men and four women, branded eco-terrorists, have pleaded guilty to charges related to 20 fires set in five Western states from 1996 to 2001 that caused $40 million of damage. Targets included the Vail ski resort, wild horse corrals, National Forest ranger stations, meat packing plants, research laboratories, lumber company offices and a tree farm. The 10 are to be sentenced starting next week. Federal prosecutors asked Judge Ann Aiken that a so-called terrorism enhancement...