Who Bombed Judi Bari

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Who Bombed Judi Bari?
Who Bombed Judi Bari poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed byMary Liz Thomson
Produced by Darryl Cherney
Edited byMary Liz Thomson
Production
company
hokey pokey productions
Release date
  • March 2012 (2012-03)(Santa Rosa)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Who Bombed Judi Bari? is an American historical documentary about an assassination attempt on the life of Judi Bari, an American environmental and labor activist, which occurred on May 24, 1990 via a pipe bomb in her car. [1] [2] It was directed by Mary Liz Thomson and produced by Darryl Cherney. He is also an environmental activist and was traveling with Bari that day, but was not as severely wounded.

Contents

Overview

While driving through Oakland, California on their way to a benefit concert for the Redwood Summer campaign to save California's coast redwood trees, activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were injured when a pipe bomb detonated under the driver's seat of Bari's car. [3] Bari, who was driving, was critically injured.

Oakland police and the FBI approached the explosion as a terrorist incident, and arrested Bari and Cherney. In their investigation, they tried to prove that the activists were transporting an explosive device that accidentally detonated. The two were never charged with a crime.

They filed a civil rights lawsuit in 1991 against these law enforcement organizations for violation of their constitutional rights. In 2002 they won the lawsuit (Bari had died of breast cancer in 1997). Cherney and the late Bari's estate were awarded $4.4 million, to be paid by the FBI and Oakland Police Department. [4] The authorities allegedly did not investigate any other suspects. Discovery during the lawsuit revealed crime scene photos that clearly showed the bomb was located under Bari's seat, not in the back seat as investigators had alleged. [1]

In 2012, a federal judge ordered the FBI not to destroy another pipe bomb that they had held as evidence after it partially detonated in May 1990 at a lumber mill in Cloverdale about a week before the car bombing. Investigators agreed the two bombs were built by the same person. Ben Rosenfeld, attorney for Darryl Cherney, had requested that an outside lab perform DNA testing on the Cloverdale bomb. The FBI said it had not conducted such testing, and the judge upheld Rosenfeld's request. [5]

Reception

The film premiered at the 2012 San Francisco Green Film Festival. [6] [7]

Awards

Related Research Articles

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Judith Beatrice Bari was an American environmentalist, feminist, and labor leader, primarily active in Northern California after moving to the state in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was the principal organizer of Earth First! campaigns against logging in the ancient redwood forests of Mendocino County and related areas. She also organized Industrial Workers of the World Local 1 in an effort to bring together timber workers and environmentalists of Earth First! in common cause.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pipe bomb</span> Improvised explosive device consisting of explosive material within a sealed pipe

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Redwood Summer was a three-month movement in 1990 of environmental activism aimed at protecting old-growth redwood trees from logging by northern California timber companies and was part of the Timber Wars of the 1990s. Organized in 1990 by Earth First! and the Industrial Workers of the World, it was led by Judi Bari. A protest associated with Redwood Summer took place in June 1990 at the Louisiana Pacific export dock in Samoa, California. Before the protests officially started, the campaign gained international attention on May 24, 1990 when the campaign leader, Judi Bari, and a fellow activist, Darryl Cherney, were involved in a pipe bomb explosion that critically injured them while they were driving through Oakland, California. The explosion led to the FBI accusing Bari of manufacturing and transporting bombs. Due to the FBI not being able to adequately support their claims, she was eventually found innocent. The movement was also known to use many controversial techniques to disrupt the logging companies including tree spiking, symbolic protests, and disarming machinery. Though the protests were supposed to remain non-violent, many critics argue that Earth First! is a radical group and the techniques used in the protests are debated.

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References

  1. 1 2 Dean Kuipers (March 25, 2012). "'Who Bombed Judi Bari?' documentary seeks an answer". Los Angeles Times.
  2. "Judi Bari documentary at film festival". Santa Rosa Press Democrat. 16 March 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  3. NEIL GENZLINGER (November 15, 2012). "A Victim Testifies From the Grave". New York Times.
  4. Thadeus Greenson (May 19, 2015). "Who Bombed Judi Bari? 25 Years Later, We May Find an Answer". The North Coast Journal.
  5. Dean Kuipers (April 2, 2012). "Judge orders testing of evidence in Judi Bari bombing". Los Angeles Times.
  6. "Who Bombed Judi Bari?". San Francisco Green Film Festival. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  7. "Documentary film 'Who Bombed Judi Bari?' plays in Arcata". Times-Standard. 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  8. "Awards". Who Bombed Judi Bari?. Retrieved July 12, 2015.