Police Hold Earth First! Pair in Blast

Two Earth First! activists recovering from injuries suffered when an explosion tore through their car were arrested Friday by Oakland police for possessing and transporting an explosive device.

However, Oakland authorities released no evidence as to why they believe the two suspects are to blame for the explosion Thursday that nearly killed them. The activists, Judi Bari, 40, of Redwood Valley and Darryl Cherney, 33, of Piercy, had no history of violence but said they had recently received anonymous death threats.

Bari, who remained under police guard in an Oakland hospital Friday with a broken pelvis, was described as being in stable condition. Cherney, who had been treated and released for cuts and bruises, was in police custody.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Oakland Police Administration Building on Friday morning to denounce the decision to hold Bari and Cherney. The demonstrators said they believe the bomb was planted by someone trying to scare environmentalists into ending their efforts to protect old-growth forests.

Bari and Cherney had recently begun organizing a national effort to recruit college students and others to come to Northern California to block the logging of old-growth redwoods. They call the project “Redwood Summer,” after the “Mississippi Summer” civil rights activities staged by college students and others in the 1960s, and vowed it would be nonviolent.

Several of the protesters Friday accused Oakland police and the FBI of conspiring to protect the actual bombers; some accused the FBI of planting the bomb itself.

“They talk about alleged links between Earth First! and criminal acts,” said Susan Jordan, a Ukiah lawyer representing Bari. “It is easy to allege a link. What I want to know--and what you should want to know--is: Where is the evidence?”

Oakland Police Lt. Clyde M. (Mike) Sims said the decision to hold Bari and Cherney--formal charges will not be filed before today--was based on police questioning of Cherney and other Earth First! activists, as well as physical evidence at the scene of the blast.

But Sims declined to discuss the evidence in detail except to say that the probe hinges on the location of the bomb, which federal agents believe was detonated under the driver’s seat of Bari’s white 1981 Subaru station wagon as she drove past Oakland High School. Sims added that investigators no longer are considering other suspects.

“We are not commenting on what (Cherney) told us,” Sims said. “We are not commenting on the evidence that we found.”

Sims also declined to describe the bomb itself or to speculate why it went off. He also would not say what was found in police searches conducted at four locations in Alameda, San Francisco and Mendocino counties, or relate any eyewitness accounts.

Earth First! backers discounted police assertions of convincing evidence, including Cherney’s interrogation. They alleged--and police denied--that the 33-year-old activist was denied a lawyer during questioning.

“Based on my own experience, it’s easy to believe they’re not being honest about Darryl’s responses (to questions of whether he wanted a lawyer),” charged long-time Earth First! member Karen Pickett, who said she was detained at the hospital by police and questioned for seven hours about the bombing without benefit of counsel.

Pickett and others speculated that authorities were so eager to wind up this case--and discredit the radical Earth First! movement--that they are ignoring any scenario other than to “blame the victims,” as one picket sign suggested.

“This, to me, is an FBI setup,” said Andy Caffrey, an Earth First! member who said he had been Cherney’s roommate in Piercy last year. “They are trying to portray us as a band of bomb-throwing anarchists. It’s not true. I’ve known Darryl for three years. Darryl is a wimp.”

Duke Diedrich, an FBI spokesman in San Francisco, dismissed such speculation. “I think that’s an irresponsible and moronic statement,” he said. “We categorically deny that. I don’t think there’s any evidence of FBI involvement.”

Pickett said a recording the FBI mistakenly made of its own agents last year showed that the bureau has launched a campaign to crush Earth First! primarily because of its political views.

(In that tape, which was made public during court proceedings in Arizona, FBI infiltrator Michael Fain tells another agent: “I don’t look for them to be doing a lot of hurting of people.” He later adds that the focus of his investigation, Earth First! co-founder David Foreman, “isn’t the guy we need to pop in terms of actual perpetrator. This is the guy we need to (arrest) in order to send a message.”)

Bari has filed police complaints in Mendocino County accusing a log truck of trying to force her car off the road and someone of drawing the cross-hairs of a rifle scope over her photograph and tacking it to the door of the Mendocino Environmental Center, authorities there said.

Cherney reported similar incidents in the last year to the Humboldt County sheriff’s office in Garberville.

Police Lt. Sims said: “There is no evidence those threats are related to this event.”

Until this year, Bari and Cherney had limited their public activism to such nonviolent acts as marching in government offices and sitting in redwood trees to save them from being cut down. The Redwood Summer was scheduled to be more of the same.

Earlier this year, however, the Sierra Club and other mainline environmentalists withdrew from the project, fearing it might lead to violent confrontation in the emotional atmosphere enveloping Pacific Northwest logging towns.

Environmentalists have filed lawsuits effectively blocking the clear-cutting of old-growth forests, resulting in an emotional backlash by loggers whose jobs are threatened by efforts to save the forests.

Aware of rising tensions throughout the rural Northwest, Earth First! early this year renounced the use of certain violent tactics, including the sabotage of logging equipment. Earth First! supporters said that despite the threats received since then, Bari and Cherney had remained firmly committed to nonviolence.

“They are well known to be nonviolent; well known to not use explosives,” said Keith McHenry, an Earth First! supporter and member of the San Francisco homeless advocacy group Food Not Bombs. “Despite this, the police seem not to be considering any other possibility. What’s going on?”

Times researcher Norma Kaufman in San Francisco contributed to this story.