Posted on 03/23/2004 2:32:11 PM PST by mhking
The FBI's capture of a prominent figure in what it calls the nation's worst domestic terrorist threat may do little to slow the radical environmental movement known as the Earth Liberation Front, federal authorities acknowledge. The suspect, Tre Arrow, also known as Michael Scarpitti and numerous other pseudonyms, is a charismatic figure who has run for political office before running from the law after being accused as the ringleader in a pair of environmentally motivated arson attacks.
"It's a very big capture for us," said Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the Portland, Ore., office of the FBI. "[The suspect has] been indicted in two firebombing cases here. He's certainly very important to us. It remains to be seen what broader effect the arrest will have."
Arrow was arrested March 13 by police in Victoria, British Columbia, after he allegedly tried to shoplift a pair of boltcutters, even though he had $185 in his pockets, authorities said.
"When you're on the run wanted by the FBI, maybe you should just buy the boltcutters," joked Officer Rick Anthony, spokesman for the Victoria police department.
Arrow was being held in a Victoria jail, while the FBI, Victoria police and Canadian immigration officials sorted out how extradition would proceed. Anthony and Steele both said there was no timetable for his return to the United States.
"We want to get him back to those guys [the FBI] as quickly as possible," Anthony said.
No Leadership, Just a Shared Ethos
It was the second such arrest this month. On March 9, the FBI nabbed Billy Cottrell, 23, of Pasadena, Calif., on charges of arson, using a destructive device and conspiracy in a series of firebombings last August at an SUV dealership and of several vehicles at private homes that caused damages worth an estimated $2.3 million.
Cottrell, a California Institute of Technology student, was tracked down after allegedly sending anonymous e-mails to the Los Angeles Times claiming responsibility for the fires that destroyed or damaged 125 SUVs.
But will the busts matter? Law enforcement and others who monitor the radical environmental movement have long recognized the non-hierarchical structure of the ELF, which has claimed responsibility for causing more than $100 million worth of damage since 1997.
ELF has no leadership structure; individuals or small cells carry out actions on their own. The only link is a shared belief that radical action is needed to stop development, logging, pollution, genetic engineering research and anything else seen as threatening to the environment.
In the hundreds of incidents the group has claimed responsibility for, no one has been killed and only a handful of people have been injured, and postings on the group's Web site have generally expressed the belief that all life is sacred and actions should be carried out in such a way as to minimize the risk of injury.
Does Arrest Show Vulnerability?
If the arrests have any effect on the movement's adherents, some observers say, it will likely only be psychological.
"For the last several years, inciters and eco-terror supporters have focused on the fact that so few have been arrested — only a handful of those responsible have been brought to justice," said Kelly Stoner, the director of Stop Eco-Violence, a group that monitors the ELF and other radical environmentalists.
"This might change that impression of invulnerability," she said.
But she and law enforcement acknowledged the arrest was the result of Arrow's carelessness, rather than his being tracked down.
Scholars who study the movement say they expect no decrease in the activity of radical environmentalists.
"The arrests will have zero effect," University of Texas philosophy professor Steve Best said. "It's too decentralized of a network."
Bron Taylor, a professor of religion at the University of Florida, said he has the impression, based on interviews he has done over the years with people claiming to be ELF activists, the arrests will have no impact whatever.
He noted, however, several high-profile arrests and convictions in the late 1980s seemed to slow down the "monkey-wrenching" movement, which was a kind of precursor to the ELF.
"It seems some activists concluded they couldn't do the Earth any good behind bars and they developed different tactics," he speculated.
Yet one ELF activist, now serving a 22-year prison sentence for an arson attack that destroyed three SUVs at a Eugene, Ore., car dealership, has not allowed prison to stop his activism. Jeffery "Free" Luers has written extensively for alternative media and has a Web site.
‘Leader and Instigator’
Arrow is accused of playing leading roles in the April 2001 firebombing at a sand and gravel company in Portland that destroyed three concrete trucks and did more than $200,000 worth of damage, as well as in the June 2001 arson at a logging company in Eagle Creek, Ore., that damaged two logging trucks and a front loader.
Three others have pleaded guilty to involvement in the logging company arson, and according to court documents, one of them, Jacob Sherman, cooperated with investigators and told them Arrow, was "the leader and instigator" and had "groomed" him as an environmental activist.
The role of exemplar was one Arrow seemed to play for many in the Northwest, an area considered to be sympathetic to the philosophy of "deep ecology" espoused by ELF.
"In the Portland area he was fairly famous for his dedication and his activities for several years," former ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh said. "I would think he inspired a lot of people because he showed a strong presence. Everything from his tree sits to his happiness and the way he lived life." He drew attention to himself and to his cause in July of 2000 with a highly visible form of tree-sitting.
Instead of perching in an old growth giant threatened by logging deep in the woods, he climbed the facade of the building where the U.S. Forest Service has its offices in Portland and made himself at home on a 9-inch-wide ledge for 11 days.
After Run for Congress, Canada Became Refuge
The popularity he gained from that protest turned him from being just another of the city's counter-culture eccentrics, perhaps recognizable for his habit of going barefoot, into an energizing public figure.
He used that public attention in a run for Congress on the Pacific Green Party ticket in the fall of 2000, receiving more than 15,000 votes — a little more than 6 percent — despite having virtually no funding.
"Because he gained notoriety for the window-ledge sit, he was able to gain quite a bit of public relations just from that for his campaign," Rosebraugh said. "The goal was just to try to get more education out about the situation of the environment and I think he did that."
Police believe Arrow, who was calling himself Joshua Murray when he was arrested, was able to convince numerous people across Canada to let him stay with them, and it appears he was in the country for nearly the entire 18 months he was on the run, Anthony said.
He was found with about two dozen names and phone numbers, and some of those people told police that he had stayed with them, though it is not yet clear whether any of them knew his true identity, Anthony said.
"He tries to come across as this vegan, 'I'm just an Earth-loving person,' but we don't buy that," Anthony said. "After all, bolt cutters are one of the primary tools in an eco-terrorist's tool box."
though and he chooses to harbour them and aide them.
Pardon me but harbouring eco terrorists and arsonist that endanger firefighters
lives to save voles outweighs his being ex-military in my book. Tim Mcveigh Was ex military.
I appreciate where you're coming from and understand your point. People ask me why I stay in the Democratic Party when they are nothing but a lynch mob of power hungry crooks. Well, just maybe if enough of us good guys hang in there we can take the party back. Unfortunately we have to sleep with some really ugly whores in the process.
Not all liberals are baby killers and conservatives don't have a patent on patriotism and fortunately most of us are somewhere in the middle with one or two special hopes.
"The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind."
Almost exactly what I think Libertarians should be trying to do in the Republican party.
There was a letter from Judi Bari recently published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser of Booneville, CA. (The letter had been held by an associate of Judi Bari at Bari's request for five years after her death from cancer.) In this letter Bari explained that she had been bombed by her wacko ex-husband and that she and others in the "movement" had known this all along. The whole story about them being targeted by the timber industry or the FBI was deliberate lies on their part. The bombing and the subsequent suit and settlement against the FBI were front-page news in S.F. Judi's letter passed without notice.
Good point, but I like to think that Libertarians are more closely allied with Liberals...except for the problem they have with being so cheap with other people's money...[:>)
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