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News :: Miscellaneous |
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FBI ORDERED TO PAY $4.4 MILLION IN DAMAGES FOR TARGETING ACTIVISTS |
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by Molly Stentz
Email: molly (nospam) ojctech.com (unverified!) |
23 Jun 2002
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On June 11, in a landmark civil rights case, a federal jury ordered the FBI and the Oakland Police Department to award $4.4 million in damages in favor of activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney for harrassment and violation of their First Amendment rights. |
Oakland, CA - JUNE 11, 2002
On June 11, in a landmark civil rights case, a federal jury ordered the FBI and the Oakland Police Department to award $4.4 million in damages in favor of activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney for harrassment and violation of their First Amendment rights.
This settlement marks the beginning of the end of a decade-long battle between activists and the FBI over what some say was an FBI-orchestrated murder attempt on the lives of Bari and Cherney that the FBI then used to accuse them of domestic terrorism and to slander, vilify, and silence
environmental activists.
Bari and Cherney were well-known members of the environmental organization Earth First!, which organized massive campaigns to protect Redwood and other old-growth forests in Northern California from destructive logging
practices. They were responsible for organizing an event called Redwood Summer which drew thousands of people from around the country to protect the endangered forests. They were also the target of many right-wing groups and vigilante loggers, and were under intense scrutiny and
harrassment by local law enforcement and the FBI.
On May 24, 1990, Bari and Cherney were driving through Oakland, California in Bari's station wagon when Bari stepped on the brakes and triggered a motion-activated pipe bomb that had been planted beneath the driver's side
seat. The bomb exploded, sending shrapnel and nails throughout the car and its two passengers, leaving a 2 by 4 foot hole in the car's floorboard and leaving the two activists seriously injured yet still alive, Bari with
a broken back and shattered pelvis and Cherney with loss of hearing.
As Bari lie in a hospital operating room just hours after the bombing, Oakland police were busy filing the paperwork to arrest them on suspicion of possessing explosives. The Oakland police and FBI then issued a series of press releases triumphantly announcing the arrest, falsely insinuating and associating Earth First! with the bombing, and ultimately accusing Bari and Cherney of attempting to blow themselves up.
Bari and Cherney filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the FBI and and Oakland Police a year after the bombing. They accused them of violating their civil rights in attempt to discredit Earth First! and its political
message. The case finally went to court this April.
According to attorneys for the activists, this has been only the third-ever civil rights case with a jury trail against the FBI, and the damages awarded were the higest ever in history.
The $4.4 million dollar settlement surpassed the damages awarded to the family of Black Panther Party activist Fred Hampton, who was targeted and killed in an FBI raid in 1969 and those awarded to the family of Vicky Weaver, who was shot and killed by an FBI sniper at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in
two highly politicized cases.
Supporters of the activists say this is a huge victory for free speech and the rights of citizens, yet in the case of Judi Bari, it came way too late. Bari died of breast cancer in 1997.
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