By Richard Johnson - Mendocino Country Environmentalist, May 29, 1990
In a nightmare series of events in the Bay Area, Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney have been carbombed, interrogated, arrested and slapped with bail of $100,000 each. They were bombed around noon on Thursday, May 24, as they drove through Oakland.
Miraculously, Bari and Cherney survived the assault. They were expected to either be arraigned on trumped up explosives charges or released for lack of evidence as MCE goes to press. Cherney was in jail, and Bari was recovering in the hospital under police guard. According to doctors, she will be able to walk again after a long period of convalescence. According to statements by the Oakland police and the FBI, Bari and Cherney themselves were the prime suspects in the explosion that easily could have killed them. By Friday evening, however, no formal charges had been brought.
Bari and Cherney, along with virtually the whole environmental movement in Northern California denounce the police accusation as false.
This atrocity will not slow the development of the Redwood Summer campaign, nor will it dilute our movement’s commitment to nonviolence. In the face of this outrageous violation of our civil rights, Betty Ball of the Mendocino Environmental Center called on everyone involved in Redwood Summer to double and redouble their commitment to nonviolence.
The MEC, along with this publication and many other environmental and peace groups around California and the nation, supports Redwood Summer protests now being organized by Earth First! College students and other activists nationwide are being invited to gather here for a summer-long series of non-violent protests against corporate destruction of forests in Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity Counties.
Not content with blaming the victims of the cowardly and despicable Oakland bombing, police used the blast as an excuse to raid movement offices in the Bay area and two homes in Mendocino County. Meanwhile, opponents of Earth First! said that this attack on the effort’s organizers
confirmed their fears that Redwood Summer would result in violence.
“Somebody Tried to Kill Us!”
Charismatic activist-musicians Bari and Cherney have long been associated with leadership of the Earth First! movement on the north coast. They were touring the Bay Area to coordinate Redwood Summer activities with Seeds of Peace, a communal group that provides food and logistical support for non-violent actions, and to recruit students at rallies and concerts. Cherney is a guitarist and song-writer in the tradition of Woodie Guthrie, while Bari plays fiddle and sings.
Bari and Cherney had left the Seeds of Peace House in Berkeley shortly before noon on Thursday on their way to a recruiting rally and concert in Santa Cruz. With Bari at the wheel of her white 1986 Subaru, they reached the comer of Park and MacArthur Boulevards in Oakland when a powerful explosion ripped through the car. The blast distorted the car’s unibody frame, tore out its left side and sent debris and heavy grey and white smoke flying into the air. The shattered, smoking car veered 100 feet down the road, and hit another vehicle before coming to a stop against a curb.
Cherney later told KMUD radio in Garberville that they were only on the road about five minutes when “I heard a ‘crack’, and my head began to ring like a sitar in my head, like ‘nnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’, and the car came to a screeching halt.
“The first thought was, ‘Oh no, not again!’ because last August we had been rear-ended by a logging truck without ever seeing it coming, and here we are again, me and Judi in a car.
“But this time, my head was bleeding and I knew I had a seat belt on, and I couldn’t figure out how come my head was bleeding if I hadn’t hit the windshield. Then I heard somebody scream out. ‘It’s a bomb, there was a bomb!’ And then it all made sense, somebody had tried to kill us,” said Cherney.
According to press reports, the second vehicle hit a woman pedestrian who had a heart attack. A man who happens to work for a demolitions company was driving behind Bari. After the explosion, he summoned police from his mobile telephone. And with the police arrived the media to photograph the carnage.
“I took a look over to Judi,” said Darryl, “and she was slumped in her seat, screaming in pain. But as far as I could tell, her body was in one piece.”
After dispatching the two victims to the hospital in an ambulance, police detained two Seeds of Peace members who had been traveling in the car ahead of Bari. David and Shannon Marr were held at the Oakland police station for questioning for some six hours before being released.
Over the weekend, Judi Bari’s medical condition was quoted as serious but stable. She had no damage to vital organs, but did suffer facial cuts, a shattered pelvis, and internal bleeding that was stopped by surgery at Highland Hospital in Oakland. No matter what the legal outcome, she is expected to be confined to the hospital for six to eight weeks of traction.
Darryl Cherney had facial cuts and a possible injury to his arm. He was released from the hospital, detained by police for questioning, then arrested and held at the city jail. He telephoned the MEC on Saturday evening, sounding fatigued but coherent.
For twenty-four hours after their assault, Bari and Cherney were each sequestered from their supporters and attorneys while they were grilled by police and FBI agents who told reporters that they suspected that the pair had been carrying the bomb to use against someone else when it went off accidently.
Over the weekend, Earth First! held nightly vigils at the hospital and the police station in support of Bari and Cherney.
Movement lawyer Susan B. Jordan was at first denied—but later granted—permission to see Bari. Jordan said Bari was so heavily sedated she could not carry on a sustained conversation. Bari expressed fear for her life, but was able to deny responsibility for the blast. When asked who may have planted the bomb, she could only mumble, “Timber.”
Bari and Cherney have been the target of numerous death threats since EF! announced plans for Redwood Summer. “After the first 30, I stopped counting them,” Bari said in a recent interview. Mendocino County sheriffs and Ukiah police told Bari they did not have the manpower to investigate the death threats, but “If you turn up dead, we’ll investigate.”
For their part, movement leaders urged environmentalists not to overreact to the tragedy. “We’re not getting into conspiracy theories at this point,” said Gary Ball of the Mendocino Environmental Center. “We’re saying that the police have made an obvious mistake and that they need to do a real investigation to find the criminal who planted that bomb and who is still on the loose
Over the weekend, Greenpeace hired a private investigator to find the bomber “because we think the investigation by the Oakland police and the FBI is being botched,” said EF! cofounder Mike Roselle in Berkeley.
Police Crackdown on Movement:
“This bombing is a vicious, brutal act perpetrated not just against Judi and Darryl but against our whole movement.” said MEC director Betty Ball. “The bomber wanted not only to destroy these two people, but the forest they are giving their lives to protect.”
Bay Area activist Karen Pickett, as well as others who went to the hospital to inquire for Judi’s health were also detained for questioning, then released. FBI agents and county sheriffs searched Bari and Cherney’s homes that evening and the next day in an attempt to find some evidence on which to charge them.
A private home and two environmental organizations in the Bay Area were also subject to searches. Oakland police along with federal alcohol, tobacco, and firearms agents with drawn guns raided the Seeds of Peace House on California Street in Berkeley on Thursday afternoon. They refused to show a search warrant, but ordered the residents outside. The police then trashed the dwelling, unsuccessfully looking for evidence. The Rainforest Action Network office was also searched.
Police also ransacked Darryl’s van and used a detonator to blow up his tape collection.
On Friday morning while a search of Cherney’s home north of Piercy was still underway, Oakland police temporarily delayed a press conference at which they were to announce charges against the organizers. When they finally said that Bari and Cherney were under arrest for suspicion of possession and transportation of explosives, they could not indicate any evidence on which to base that accusation. Instead, they could only say that the presumed placement of the bomb indicated that Bari and Cherney must have known the bomb was in the car.
By Friday evening, no charges had been filed, but bail of$100,000 had been set for each of the activists. Press reports said that FBI officials were lying to link Bari and Cherney with what they claimed were environmentally-related bombings throughout northern California.
By Saturday evening, attorneys in the office of Susan B. Jordan were saying that the activists would either be arraigned or released on Tuesday. Other than medical personnel and law enforcement, Jordan was the only person allowed in to see Judi Bari in the Highland Hospital jail ward since her assault. Attorneys in Jordan’s San Francisco office told MCE that the Alameda County DA had no evidence on which to continue holding the activists.
Organizers vowed that Redwood Summer protests will continue despite the tragedy. “This will slow nothing down,” said Betty Ball, director of the Mendocino Environmental Center in Ukiah. “We’re solid as ever and committed to nonviolence.”