Earth First! Says It Blocked Race but Meant No Injury

Earth First!, a radical environmental group, acknowledged Tuesday that its followers had blockaded a freeway underpass with railroad ties last weekend to protest the annual Barstow-to-Las Vegas motorcycle race.

However, Mike Roselle, a spokesman for the group, denied that the blockade presented a danger to cyclists, saying the protesters knew race organizers would inspect the underpass before the event.

In addition, Roselle said Earth First! followers criss-crossed the entrance to the six-foot-square tunnel with yellow plastic “caution” tapes to clearly indicate that something inside was amiss.

“We felt confident that the person in charge of monitoring that part of the race . . . could see the tunnel had been blocked,” he said. “As far as we’re concerned, there was no attempt to injure anyone.”

Federal officials, meanwhile, said they are continuing to investigate the incident, which they said could violate state and federal laws barring the creation of road hazards with the intent to do “great bodily harm.”

No one was injured by the plugged tunnel, which was discovered less than an hour before the scheduled 7:30 a.m. start of the race Saturday. Efforts to unblock the tunnel with a winch delayed the start of the race 13 minutes.

Steve Fleming, a Bureau of Land Management ranger in Barstow, said that the federal investigation has been hampered by a lack of evidence indicating who actually plugged the tunnel.

Recollection of Event

“It’s going to be admittedly very difficult to attach a person to this,” he said.

He added that he does not recall seeing yellow warning tape at the scene, but added that law enforcement officials did not arrive at the tunnel until well after the obstacle had been dismantled and removed.

Race organizer Rick Hammel, one of the people who discovered the ties, said he does not recall seeing warning tapes at the tunnel entrance, although he added that “I’m not going to dispute it was there.”

Hammel also said Earth First! was correct in assuming the course would be inspected before racing began, but he still called the protest “malicious.”

“I think it’s the wrong thing to do,” he said. “If they have a problem with the race, they should challenge it in the proper forum, out in the open.”

Roselle said Earth First! followers took the action to protest the BLM’s decision to allow a motorcycle race across land nominated as a national park site. This was the last time the race will be run over the proposed park site.

Called a Victory

“As far as we’re concerned, a 13-minute delay was a big victory for us,” Roselle said. “We’d like to stop this race forever, of course, but by being able to delay it at all, we did what we set out to do.”

Earth First! has no formal members, only independent activists who believe in the credo of “No compromise in defense of Mother Earth.”

Roselle said Earth First!, which uses the exclamation point as part of its name, decided to blockade the tunnel after learning that race organizers had graded part of the desert route without BLM permits. Race leaders were fined $1,800 for smoothing over some of the bumps on the course without authorization.

“We felt this was a legitimate way to delay the race,” Roselle said. “In all honesty, we felt we did this in a sportsmanlike manner. We didn’t make it impossible to take it apart (and did not) booby-trap it or anything.”

BLM officials were less forgiving.

“We take this very seriously because somebody could have gotten hurt--somebody could have gotten killed, in fact,” Fleming said. “This was not a harmless prank.”

Mark A. Stein reported from San Francisco and George Stein from Los Angeles.