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Darryl Cherney, here, passing on an editorial from our local Santa Rosa paper that has been echoed in similar editorials around the area. Our victory in the appeals court is firm and good things are to come. Viva Judi Bari. Darryl The Press Democrat Santa Rosa, California, Wednesday, September 29, 1999; Empire News, Page B-1 BARI BOMB CASE TAINTED BY LIES by CHRIS COURSEY, Press Democrat columnist We may never know the truth about who bombed anti-logging activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney as they drove through Oakland on a May morning in 1990. But we found out a lot about the lies last week. The justices of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco didn't actually use the word "lies" in ruling that Oakland police won't be let off the hook for their investigation of the bombing. No, the justices have better manners than that. Instead, their 25-page opinion says "false and reckless statements," "inaccurate information" and "misrepresentations" tainted the Oakland Police Department's handling of the case. But I don't have such nice manners. When I read the court's ruling, I came to this blunt conclusion: The cops lied. They lied to me and to the rest of the media. We passed those lies on to you. Bari and Cherney were arrested shortly after the bomb exploded in Bari's car. Police and FBI agents contended that the two Earth First radicals were "terrorists," carrying the bomb as part of their "Redwood Summer" campaign against the North Coast's corporate loggers. To support that contention, police said the bomb was easily visible on the back floorboard of Bari's Subaru, and that nails used as shrapnel in the bomb matched a bag of nails found In Bari's car and, later, nails found in Bari's Mendocino County home. Damning evidence, to be sure. It likely convinced plenty of observers that that the two scruffy activists probably got what they deserved. But it wasn't true. * * * Bari, who was permanently disabled by the blast and died in I997 of breast cancer, and Cherney vigorously denied knowledge of the bomb. They accused the FBI and Oakland police of bungling the bombing investigation by focusing their probe solely on the victims. When no charges were filed, the pair sued. They allege among other things - that the bureau and the police violated their First Amendment rights by conspiring to squelch their political activities. Tensions in timber country were high that year, with environmental activists and loggers squaring off in the forests and on the streets of several North Coast towns. Oakland police felt the heat as Bari, from her hospital bed, and Cherney, with a bullhorn, organized repeated demonstrations calling for a "full and fair" probe of the crime. The police responded with announcements and leaks to improve perceptions of their investigation: The nails on the bomb carried the same fabrication "fingerprint" as those in a bag in Bari's car and home, all of which came from a batch of between 200 and 1,000 nails. The bomb was not hidden in the car; Bari and Cherney had to have seen it when they loaded the vehicle. But the justices wrote last week that "it would be obvious to any objective observer'' that the nails in the bomb were not similar to the others in Bari's car, one set had flat heads, the other round heads. Nails are made in batches of millions, not less than 1,000 (the FBI "expert" to whom police attributed that statement denied ever saying it). Damage to the car showed that the bomb was directly under Bari's driver's seat, and further evidence indicated it was hidden under a towel. Oakland police had asked the court to dismiss them from the activists' suit, but the justices declined. The police, the court said, had made "false and reckless statements about the location of the bomb" and "false and reckless statements tying nails possessed by Bari to the bomb." Further, the activists' lawyers have produced "sufficient evidence that FBI agents had intended to inhibit" Bari and Cherney's political activities, and "sufficient circumstantial evidence" that FBI agents and Oakland police officers "entered into a conspiracy to further this goal." The ruling is not a conviction of Oakland cops or the FBI. It merely says that there's enough evidence of official wrongdoing to allow the case to go before a jury. In other words, we're not to the truth yet. But we're getting closer. ------------------------------------------------------------- Call Coursey at (707) 521-5223 or e-mail ccoursey@pressdemo.com © The Press Democrat In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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