I only highlight this story because, as the far-far-far left becomes more militant, I expect such tales to become more common and groups like ELF and ALF to become more dangerous and eventually murderous.
A woman being held in Oregon and accused of toppling an electricity transmission tower and torching a meatpacking plant there is a prime suspect in the 2001 firebombing of the University of Washington’s Urban Horticulture Center in Seattle.
Chelsea Gerlach, who is also known as “Country Girl,” is one of six people the FBI arrested last week in a series of Northwest ecoterrorism attacks. She is likely to be indicted in the UW arson, according to federal criminal justice sources.
At a hearing in Eugene on Tuesday to determine whether Gerlach will be held or released on bond, assistant U.S. attorney Kirk Engdahl said that she is a prime suspect in the May 21, 2001, UW fire. He also called her a suspect in four other high-profile ecoterrorism cases: the Oct. 11, 1998, attempted arson at Bureau of Land Management wild-horse corrals in Rock Springs, Wyo.; the Oct. 19, 1998, firebombing of a ski resort at Vail, Colo., which caused $12 million in damage; the Dec. 25, 1999, arson of a Boise Cascade office in Monmouth, Ore.; and the May 21, 2001, firebombing of the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore. Two others have been arrested in the last case.
Judge Thomas Coffin ordered Gerlach held without bail, pending the outcome of today’s grand jury session in Oregon.
Gerlach, 28, of Portland, and two others are accused of loosening bolts and support components on a Bonneville Power Administration electric tower 25 miles east of Bend on the night of Dec. 30, 1999. The tower toppled.
She is also being charged with the May 9, 1999, firebombing of the Childers Meat Co. in Eugene. Engdahl said he would present evidence to a grand jury today seeking indictments against Gerlach in the meatpacking fire and the 2001 firebombing at the tree farm in Clatskanie.
She was one of six people arrested in five states last week on indictments alleging they took part in a string of arson attacks and other crimes from 1998 to 2001 in Oregon and Washington, for which the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front took responsibility.
How environmentally sound was the UW arson? Well, good if you hate the manipulation of plant DNA. Bad if you hate plant preservation.
The apparent target at the UW center was research into the fast-growing hybrid poplar tree — a tiny portion of which were the transgenic product of DNA manipulation and had been imported from an Oregon State University lab.
But the ELF attackers — who style themselves as defenders of the environment against unchecked encroachment by people — also destroyed numerous rare and endangered Northwest plants growing at the center that were intended to be replanted in the wild.
I will not judge Gerlach at this time, but I will predict a bloody future for ELF and ALF. You know, as if radical Islamist bastards trying to establish global dominion weren’t enough to deal with, there’s always our own domestic idiots.
I really need a new category for this kind of garbage. Any suggestions, y’all?
