Advertisement

‘Who Bombed Bari?’ Uncovers New Evidence

Share

What began as a primal conflict between eco-activists and Northern California logging companies hurtled out of control on May 24, 1990, in Oakland, when a car driven by Earth First! organizer Judi Bari was ripped apart by a timed bomb device, injuring her passenger and ex-lover Darryl Cherney and crippling Bari for life. Like a Sherlock Holmes with a video camera, writer-producer Stephen Talbot of San Francisco’s public television outlet, KQED, has dug, and dug, into the baroque plots surrounding the event.

“Who Bombed Judi Bari?” (tonight at 9 p.m., Channel 28) does what many have accused Oakland police, the FBI and other police officials of not doing: thoroughly investigating the available evidence. Indeed, Talbot’s report loudly suggests that the initial arrest of Bari and Cherney after the bombing--based almost solely on the rhetorical claim that Earth First! is a terrorist group--was a rush to judgment that culminated the FBI’s tracking of the radical environmentalists.

With Oakland police and the FBI unable to definitively link Bari and Cherney with the bomb, the list of suspects and motives unfurls like a 19th-Century detective novel. There are the anti-abortionists Bari and Cherney had taunted during a Ukiah, Calif., protest: Talbot spends a lot of time on a letter from “The Lord’s Avenger” that speaks of “baby killing” and bombs. Loggers fed up with Earth First! have used violence before, and Talbot uncovers evidence of plans for lynching environmentalists.

Advertisement

It gets juicier. Talbot finds bothersome information pointing to activist and “gun freak” Irv Sutley; to Michael Koepf, knowledgeable about bombs and ex-husband of a close Bari friend; to Bari’s own ex-husband, Mike Sweeney.

Bari, a key organizer against logging in redwood country, is convinced that the motive is political. And though Talbot’s report sometimes wanders off into detail only a forensics expert could love, it contains little to contradict Bari’s suspicions.

Advertisement