If A Tree Falls

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In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front — a group the FBI has called America's 'number one domestic terrorism threat.'

For years, the ELF — operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership — had launched spectacular arsons against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment: timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses, and a $12 million ski lodge at Vail, Colorado.

With the arrest of Daniel and thirteen others, the government had cracked what was probably the largest ELF cell in America and brought down the group responsible for the very first ELF arsons in this country.

IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, directed by Marshall Curry, tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of this ELF cell, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its members. Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thriller, the film interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism.

Drawing from striking archival footage — much of it never before seen — and intimate interviews with ELF members, and with the prosecutor and detective who were chasing them, IF A TREE FALLS explores the tumultuous period from 1995 until early 2001 when environmentalists were clashing with timber companies and law enforcement, and the word 'terrorism' had not yet been altered by 9/11.

'One of the best documentaries of the year.' Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

'An extraordinary documentary...[a] fearless exploration of complexity in a world drawn to oversimplified depictions of events and problems, heroes and villains.' Andrew Revkin, The New York Times

'If a Tree Falls offers a rare and intimate view, not just into the personal lives of Daniel McGowan and his family as he faces the prospects of a future behind bars, but also into the thoughts, emotions and actions that spearhead the fiery underground struggle to defend the Earth. The film creates a formerly non-existent safe space, where the audience is able to get an honest glimpse into drastically conflicting viewpoints on the issues of environmentalism, terrorism, revolution and repression, and walk away with our own individual opinions, though perhaps better informed. It's a very respectful and fair portrayal of a very polarized and criminally-charged issue, where the subjects' humanness takes center stage.' Leslie James Pickering, former spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front Press Office

'Its presentation of the issues were incredibly well balanced and thought provoking...The film remained fair and faithful to all the subjects of the film and clearly demonstrated the complexity of the issues. I believe viewing the film would prompt law enforcement personnel and those who exercise civil disobedience to think beyond moments of confrontation and that the film will engender a greater awareness and a better understanding between police and protesters.' Kirk Engdall, Assistant US Attorney, prosecution in the ELF case

'Personalizes ELF's history...While the film does question whether authorities overreached in the charges lodged against ELF members--since the group targeted property and never injured anyone--the filmmakers also afford time to law enforcement officials to argue their case, making this a more nuanced than polemical documentary...Recommended.' Video Librarian

'A cautionary tale...Suitable for high school and for college courses in cultural anthropology, development anthropology, economic anthropology, anthropology of violence, and American studies, as well as general audiences.' Jack David Eller, Community College of Denver, Anthropology Reviews Database

'Fact-filled...Unbiased...Open-ended questions are posed, such as what is terrorism and isn't big business responsible for oil spills and mountaintop removal mining?...Classes in journalism, political science, and current events can utilize this program as well as literature classes reading Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang.' Patricia Ann Owens, Illinois Eastern Community Colleges, School Library Journal

'Teachers of modern world history, ethics, environmental science, sociology, law, and other disciplines might find this documentary to be one that provokes strong emotions, important discussion, and close observation. This video does a fine job of presenting the complicated and potentially polarizing issue for a variety of viewpoints...All the stakeholders involved are depicted with depth and compassion...These are real people in real situations wrestling with real ethical issues.' Mare Sullivan, Bellevue Christian School, Science Books and Films

'Recommended. In addition to the story of McGowan and ELF, the filmmakers also reveal the extent to which the authorities went to get ELF members to name names and spy on each other in the wake of additional concerns after 9/11, which created new definitions of terrorism and new tools to deal with it. If a Tree Falls, thus deals with civil liberty concerns as well as environmental issues. Winner of multiple awards, this film effectively uses interviews, television and documentary clips, and narration to tell the story of one man in a larger political, historical and environmental context.' Linda Kelly Alkana, California State University Long Beach, Educational Media Reviews Online

'A true life outlaw tale, as stirring as it is tragic, the story of the Earth Liberation Front offers a DeLillo-flavored draught of high-proof righteous excitement.' Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

'A compelling doc about radical environmentalism...informative, compelling.' Justin Lowe, Hollywood Reporter

'It's a wildly successful and engaging documentary.' Jon Reiss, NY Press

'The vibe alternates between an early Clash concert and a dark, dark twist on Ocean's 11.' Abe Streep, Outside Magazine

'The film sweeps us up like a thriller...a fantastic moral ambivalence.' Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

'This is a sterling example of journalistic documentary, clearer, fairer and more engrossing than any of the sensationalistic newspaper or magazine stories about the ELF.' Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

'An intriguing and important film... As director Marshall Curry said at his Sundance post-screening Q&A: 'The film has a point of view, but a grown-up point of view that acknowledges the complexity of the situation.'' Stewart Nusbaumer, Filmmaker Magazine

'Compelling, adroitly edited portrait of the radical group.' Critics' Pick, New York Magazine

'A gripping doc about eco-terrorism.' Scott Feinberg, Hollywood Reporter

'Power mix of violent confrontation between police and activists, ultimately propels the film into a call for action and change.' Thomas Logoreci, Dox Magazine

'Yields a remarkable clarity about the perils of modern idealism.' S.T. Vanairsdale, Movieline

'A powerful and mesmerizing documentary.' David Seideman, Audubon Magazine

'5-stars: [The] filmmakers raise questions and stir public debate about the definition of terrorism, especially in the post 9/11 security environment...very compelling.' Jennifer Merin, About.com Documentaries

'By turns elegiac, tender, funny and horrifying, it is a portrait of McGowan that doubles as a complex philosophical argument about the benefits and dangers of violent social protest.' Matt Zoller Seitz, Salon.com

'If a Tree Falls is nothing if not troubling, complicated and thought-provoking...[the film] provided a common text from which everybody--radical or moderate, liberal or conservative--was able to work, interpret, converse. This common ground paired with the power of narrative establishes a strong ally for the environmental community and a bridge across divided ideologies and hopes.' Dylan Walsh, Yale Daily News

'Engrossing... A classic story of radicalization.' Nancy DeWolf Smith, Wall Street Journal

'Curry has crafted something complex and worthy of attention, a film that asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism.' Pamela Biery, Orion Magazine

'[A] remarkable and moving film...The environmental documentary genre can be ripe for groupthink and complacency, and occasionally I find myself refreshed to see a doc that forces viewers to challenge their own preconceptions and opinions. If a Tree Falls...is one such film.' Keith Goetzman, Utne Reader

'[The film] compels audience members to think about (or re-think) a number of complex situations and uncomfortable questions... It's a fascinating film.' Scott Feinberg, ScottFeinberg.com

'A fascinating, evenhanded look at the ELF.' Hal Bernton, Seattle Times

'A truly fascinating documentary that unravels the complex morality of taking on a cause, this movie is the perfect starting point for what we can only hope is a continuing discussion of how to care for the planet.' Katherine Monk, Vancouver Sun

'The gripping documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front offers an intimate look at the radical environmental group.' Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

'One of the more personal and intimate environmental docs in recent memory...It's a powerful tale; one guaranteed to generate heated discussion.' Steve Ramos, Box Office Magazine

'A stunning look at one of the most fascinating groups of people in the modern world. It pulls no punches, and it provides no easy outs.' Alex Katz, Flixist

'Meticulously researched, thought-provoking, balanced and humane new doc...A riveting cat-and-mouse game with revealing comments from felines and rodents alike.' David Lamble, The Bay Area Reporter

'A breath of fresh air, a documentary about a volatile subject matter that has the tenor of serious journalism.' Shawn Levy, The Oregonian

'Manages to not only provide extraordinary insight into this formerly clandestine group, but illuminates the group's actions without excusing them.' Neal Morris, Independent Weekly

'A gimlet-eyed glimpse into the roots of terrorism and the politics behind its prosecution...Provides a concise, temperate but penetrating history of how the ELF came to be...Curry lays out the strategies of the ELF with precision and clarity, abetted by handsome animation and terrific ancillary players.' John Anderson, Variety

'An infuriating and tear-jerking examination of the Earth Liberation Front.' Karina Longworth, LA Weekly

'Engaging...Addresses thorny issues surrounding deforestation, dissent and civil (and uncivil) disobedience in the post-9/11 era.' Anthony Kaufman, The Wall Street Journal online

'This film is so dense, packed, and well-crafted that it demands multiple viewings.' Matthew Groves, Alternative Chronicle

'A great film for anyone who likes to think about some of the most important, difficult issues of our time.' Rick Marianetti, Examiner.com

'It's simple, to the point, and effective...will definitely make you think...Curry deserves credit for working so steadfastly to share multiple points of view. He's fascinated by the inner workings of the law, the contradictions of principles and the factors that drive people to do things they'd otherwise never do.' Jeremy Matthews, Moving Pictures Network

'It's like '25th Hour' meets 'The Weather Underground.' We appreciated [the filmmaker's] immersion in the project, his access to the subject and his even-handedness in presenting both sides of the story.' Nashville Film Festival Jury, on presenting the Best Documentary Award

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Main credits

Curry, Marshall (screenwriter)
Curry, Marshall (film director)
Curry, Marshall (film producer)
Curry, Marshall (film editor)
Cullman, Sam (film director)
Cullman, Sam (film producer)
Cullman, Sam (cinematographer)
Hamacheck, Matthew (screenwriter)
Hamacheck, Matthew (film editor)
McGowan, Daniel (interviewee)

Other credits

Cinematography, Sam Cullman; music, James Baxter, The National.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

radicalization, environmental activist, Earth Liberation Front, sabotage, disillusionment, FBI, domestic terrorist, Daniel McGowan, ELF, arsons, Vail ski lodge, cinema verite, house arrest, timber companies, law enforcement,"If A Tree Falls",Bullfrog Films,doc,env; sociss

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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In Vail, Colorado, the nation's
busiest ski resort

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was hit today by a fire.

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Arson is suspected.

00:01:08.370 --> 00:01:11.030
You may have heard of the
Earth Liberation Front.

00:01:11.030 --> 00:01:14.110
The attorney general himself
says it's a domestic terrorist

00:01:14.110 --> 00:01:14.810
organization.

00:01:14.810 --> 00:01:17.020
The FBI says it is one
of the most dangerous

00:01:17.020 --> 00:01:18.840
groups in the country.

00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:21.290
The ELF has claimed
responsibility for more than

00:01:21.290 --> 00:01:24.840
two dozen major acts of
ecoterrorism since 1996.

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Firebombings include attacks
on lumber mills, wild horse

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corrals, and two meatpacking
plants.

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So far, not one of the cases
has ever been solved, and

00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:36.470
authorities acknowledge they
know next to nothing about the

00:01:36.470 --> 00:01:38.933
membership or the leadership
of the organization.

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On December 7, 2005, four
federal agents entered my

00:02:03.290 --> 00:02:05.320
wife's office and arrested
one of her

00:02:05.320 --> 00:02:07.310
employees, Daniel McGowan.

00:02:11.340 --> 00:02:14.420
It was part of a nationwide
roundup that eventually netted

00:02:14.420 --> 00:02:18.000
14 members of the radical
environmental group, the Earth

00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:21.310
Liberation Front.

00:02:21.310 --> 00:02:23.500
In all, their trail of
destruction resulted in

00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:25.510
millions of dollars of
property damage.

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Today's indictment is a
significant step in bringing

00:02:29.050 --> 00:02:32.390
these terrorists to justice.

00:02:32.390 --> 00:02:35.520
Weeks after his arrest,
Daniel's sister put up

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everything she owned for bail,
and he was placed on house

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arrest in her apartment
to wait for trial.

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In 2001, I was involved with
the Earth Liberation Front,

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and I was involved in two
separate arsons in one year.

00:03:07.935 --> 00:03:11.030
But I think that people look
at my case and they think,

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what if that motherfucker
burnt down my house.

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I think people think it's just
a bunch of young crazies,

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walking around with gas cans,
lighting shit on fire that

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pisses them off.

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And then they think, what
if I burnt things

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that pissed me off.

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That's kind of crazy.

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You know, which it
is kind of crazy.

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But I think people just need to
understand that this thing

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is complex, and it's
not that simple.

00:03:38.920 --> 00:03:40.540
It's hideous to be called
a terrorist.

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There was no one in any
of these facilities.

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No one got hurt.

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No one was injured.

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And yet, I'm facing life
plus 335 years.

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I split my time between
talking to my lawyers.

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I do a lot of research
on my case.

00:04:01.412 --> 00:04:04.270
You know, all my legal
documents.

00:04:04.270 --> 00:04:09.100
DVDs and CDs of video,
photos, audiotapes.

00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:10.920
Hi, this is Daniel McGowan.

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I know that my lawyer sent you
the brief that is being filed

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with the court today, but
it's basically about--

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As Daniel is preparing for
trial, the government is

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putting pressure on him and his

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co-defendants to take a deal.

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Either they plead guilty and
testify against each other or

00:04:25.110 --> 00:04:28.020
go to trial and risk
life in prison.

00:04:28.020 --> 00:04:30.410
I told my lawyers at our first
meeting, don't ever bring up

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cooperation as a tactic.

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We're never going
to cooperate.

00:04:33.180 --> 00:04:35.240
You don't have that card
in your back pocket.

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Don't bring it up.

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All the people in this group had
had conversations, back in

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the day, about this.

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Like, you know, you
get arrested,

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just don't say a word.

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Just get a lawyer, and
we'll join up and

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we'll see what happens.

00:04:48.130 --> 00:04:49.392
OK, thanks, Andrea.

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I'll talk to you soon.

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Bye.

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My family's done a tremendous
amount of stuff for me.

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I mean, letting me live here.

00:05:00.280 --> 00:05:04.620
But we choose to live our
lives very differently.

00:05:04.620 --> 00:05:06.400
Like I compost.

00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:08.150
I had never used a dishwasher
in my life

00:05:08.150 --> 00:05:11.430
until I moved in here.

00:05:11.430 --> 00:05:14.900
And I try not to impose my way
of doing things on anyone

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here, but yeah, we
have different

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ways to doing things.

00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:23.160
No, I don't think I need that,
because we paint every edge.

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All right.

00:05:25.950 --> 00:05:27.200
All right, bye.

00:05:29.530 --> 00:05:32.120
I'd be a liar if I called myself
an environmentalist.

00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:33.530
I mean, I care about
the environment.

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I think about the environment.

00:05:37.870 --> 00:05:39.535
I recycle.

00:05:39.535 --> 00:05:42.000
But I don't recycle every single
piece of paper, like

00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:43.976
Danny does.

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I mean, when he came home
from college, he

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lived with me in Rockland.

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One day, I came home and he
took the label off every

00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:53.510
single canned good I had,
because he was, like, so

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obsessed with recycling.

00:05:54.850 --> 00:05:56.230
He was like, if we recycle,
we have to take the

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labels off the cans.

00:05:57.320 --> 00:05:59.680
I said, but you took the
labels off every can.

00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:01.680
I don't even know what I
have in the cans now.

00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:02.950
I don't know if they're soup.

00:06:02.950 --> 00:06:04.470
I don't know what
kind of soup.

00:06:04.470 --> 00:06:06.700
I don't know if they're
peas or they're corn.

00:06:06.700 --> 00:06:08.830
And he's like, I never
thought of that.

00:06:08.830 --> 00:06:11.005
It was like, I opened my
cupboard and there was just

00:06:11.005 --> 00:06:12.255
all tin cans.

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I got a call from Jenny, totally
hysterical, upset,

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saying that some men came in and
took Daniel from his job.

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My dad's first reaction
was like, oh, I

00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:27.030
don't know my son anymore.

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And I think he was
just in shock.

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It's funny, growing up, he
wasn't the political kid that

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was fighting for anything.

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No, he was just a regular kid.

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Played with his friends,
rode his bike.

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It wasn't like he had
this whole history.

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But you know, you don't know
what's inside someone, until

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they get older and they start
to think about who they are.

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I was born in 1974
in Brooklyn.

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I moved to Rockaway when
I was around three,

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Rockaway Beach in Queens.

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It's mostly working-class
people.

00:07:09.540 --> 00:07:12.525
My dad was a cop in the New
York Police Department.

00:07:16.730 --> 00:07:20.231
I went to high school at a place
called Christ the King

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Catholic High School.

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And I was a track runner,
and I got scholarships

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and stuff like that.

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And then when I got to college,
I was like, oh, I

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guess I'll major in business,
because that's practical.

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When I graduated, I got a job at
a massive public relations

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company called
Burson-Marsteller.

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During this time period, at some
point along the way, I

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ran into a woman collecting
signatures at Union Square.

00:07:55.380 --> 00:07:57.500
She kept telling me about
Wetlands, the Wetlands

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Environmental Center.

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And that kind of was
where it changed.

00:08:01.730 --> 00:08:07.010
[PUNK MUSIC PLAYING]

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It was basically-- the idea was
it was a bar that had live

00:08:09.840 --> 00:08:12.540
shows, but the profits would
go to running an

00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:14.330
environmental center.

00:08:14.330 --> 00:08:18.300
So I went to this meeting, and
they played these films that

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blew my mind.

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I had never see with my
own eyes what kind of

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world we lived in.

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I feel like I'm in perpetual
mourning, and I have been from

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the moment that, like--

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I don't know, I kind of took the
blinders off and was like,

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holy crap, what the
hell are we doing?

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And I got involved pretty
much instantly.

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I protested constantly.

00:09:46.210 --> 00:09:47.340
I did letter-writing a lot.

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I did letter-writing every
week at Wetlands.

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I wrote hundreds of protest
letters to all sorts of

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different agencies.

00:09:53.660 --> 00:09:55.595
And at the time, they announced
that there was going

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to be a national gathering
in Crandon, Wisconsin.

00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:01.740
So I went.

00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:03.720
I mean, I was shy, city kid.

00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:04.310
I didn't--

00:10:04.310 --> 00:10:07.770
I mean, I liked nature as a
concept, but I was like--

00:10:07.770 --> 00:10:09.850
never had slept outside before
in my whole life.

00:10:09.850 --> 00:10:11.100
I was, like, 22.

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It was different than anything
I had ever seen.

00:10:20.070 --> 00:10:21.850
We went swimming in a creek.

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We were going out on logs
and jumping off.

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We were skinny-dipping.

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I mean, all this
stuff was new.

00:10:28.610 --> 00:10:30.090
You know, traditionally at the
end of the Rendezvous, they

00:10:30.090 --> 00:10:32.080
have a big action.

00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:36.320
We went to town and had a
protest at the mine office,

00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:40.070
and I actually ended
up being arrested.

00:10:40.070 --> 00:10:45.060
And it was really eye-opening
to kind of learn about this

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different world and this

00:10:46.130 --> 00:10:47.990
environmental resistance movement.

00:11:07.150 --> 00:11:10.445
I'm a fourth-generation
Oregonian, grew up in Eugene.

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My brother works in a mill.

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My uncles own mills.

00:11:18.270 --> 00:11:20.700
It's something that if you're
from Northwest, it's

00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:21.950
something you do.

00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:31.890
I think I met Daniel
here in Eugene.

00:11:31.890 --> 00:11:36.010
They called him the Disgruntled
One, just because

00:11:36.010 --> 00:11:38.860
he had sort of this nasty sort
of attitude and he was always

00:11:38.860 --> 00:11:40.080
sort of bitter.

00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:42.160
And he was always sort of pissed
off, and he'd always

00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:47.480
challenge people for their
"stupid ideas." And so they

00:11:47.480 --> 00:11:52.990
sort of coined this nickname for
him, the Disgruntled One.

00:11:52.990 --> 00:11:56.870
I think Daniel arrived out
here about '99, 1999.

00:11:56.870 --> 00:12:01.310
But to really understand why
these arsons were set, I think

00:12:01.310 --> 00:12:04.450
you've got to go all the way
back to a time when Daniel was

00:12:04.450 --> 00:12:06.040
still living back east.

00:12:06.040 --> 00:12:10.100
You've got to go to about 1995,
which was the Warner

00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:11.350
Creek timber sale.

00:12:13.660 --> 00:12:17.390
Warner Creek's about 50 miles
east of Eugene, and it's

00:12:17.390 --> 00:12:18.370
probably one of the
most beautiful

00:12:18.370 --> 00:12:21.390
places I've ever been.

00:12:21.390 --> 00:12:24.760
And in 1995, the Forest Service
decided to open it up

00:12:24.760 --> 00:12:27.000
for logging.

00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:30.850
People went up there and
created a blockade on a

00:12:30.850 --> 00:12:33.680
federal logging road to
try to prevent the

00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:36.170
logging of this place.

00:12:36.170 --> 00:12:39.550
So we created a documentary
called Pickaxe, which is the

00:12:39.550 --> 00:12:40.720
story of Warner Creek.

00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:43.580
There's more vehicles
on the way, over.

00:12:43.580 --> 00:12:46.722
One grader followed by
one [? Dudley ?].

00:12:53.810 --> 00:12:57.010
We don't think you guys have the
right to take a protected

00:12:57.010 --> 00:12:59.353
forest teeming with life,
bid it, and log it.

00:13:01.880 --> 00:13:04.440
For a long time, people were
fighting the Forest Service

00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:07.940
through, like, holding signs,
letter-writing--

00:13:07.940 --> 00:13:11.670
sort of a hippie-type
approach to protest.

00:13:11.670 --> 00:13:14.030
But there was this new
kind of protest that

00:13:14.030 --> 00:13:15.280
was becoming popular.

00:13:17.760 --> 00:13:21.630
People would call it sabotage
or monkeywrenching.

00:13:21.630 --> 00:13:23.220
They would glue locks.

00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:25.700
They would pull up
survey stakes.

00:13:25.700 --> 00:13:29.920
They would maybe put sugar in
gas tanks of bulldozers.

00:13:29.920 --> 00:13:33.580
At Warner Creek, just a simple
little blockade turned into an

00:13:33.580 --> 00:13:36.880
all-out assault on the
only way into forest.

00:13:40.340 --> 00:13:43.320
Protesters dug a series of
trenches to keep logging

00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:44.570
trucks from getting
to the forest.

00:13:46.920 --> 00:13:50.180
And then they built the wall.

00:13:50.180 --> 00:13:53.640
It looked like an old fort from
the wild, wild West, and

00:13:53.640 --> 00:13:55.780
it had a drawbridge.

00:13:55.780 --> 00:13:59.010
And it was really
a cool blockade.

00:13:59.010 --> 00:14:01.436
We're drawing a line in the
sand, and you can't come in

00:14:01.436 --> 00:14:02.770
here and destroy this place.

00:14:05.730 --> 00:14:08.625
And they stayed up there
for about a year.

00:14:20.800 --> 00:14:23.050
As a federal law enforcement
officer, it is my duty to

00:14:23.050 --> 00:14:24.510
inform you that you're
in violation.

00:14:24.510 --> 00:14:26.460
You have five minutes
to get out of here.

00:14:26.460 --> 00:14:30.190
And you have, actually, less
than five minutes.

00:14:30.190 --> 00:14:34.500
Early one morning, the Forest
Service came up, and arrested

00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:38.380
the protesters and knocked
down the wall.

00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:46.140
That created a lot
of bitterness

00:14:46.140 --> 00:14:47.770
toward the Forest Service.

00:14:50.750 --> 00:14:54.535
And soon after, things
began to escalate.

00:15:00.140 --> 00:15:04.360
The first time I met Jacob
Ferguson was at Warner Creek.

00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:05.410
He was sort of a cool dude.

00:15:05.410 --> 00:15:06.170
He didn't say much.

00:15:06.170 --> 00:15:08.770
She just did a lot of work.

00:15:08.770 --> 00:15:11.700
But I think it's really hard to
know Jacob Ferguson unless

00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:14.570
you're on the inside
of Jacob's life.

00:15:14.570 --> 00:15:17.050
This is the house I moved
into, right over here.

00:15:17.050 --> 00:15:19.820
And right at that time,
Jacob Ferguson was

00:15:19.820 --> 00:15:20.910
living right over there.

00:15:20.910 --> 00:15:23.090
But Jacob was a pirate.

00:15:23.090 --> 00:15:27.823
He was definitely an outlaw.

00:15:27.823 --> 00:15:41.627
[PLAYING ROCK MUSIC]

00:15:41.627 --> 00:15:43.130
Yeah!

00:15:43.130 --> 00:15:45.040
He tried to play a
bad boy image.

00:15:45.040 --> 00:15:49.720
And he did it well, because
I think he really was one.

00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:53.890
After Warner Creek, I think he
really felt that the Forest

00:15:53.890 --> 00:15:57.400
Service was getting
away with stuff.

00:15:57.400 --> 00:16:01.560
I think most of America feels
the US Forest Service's job is

00:16:01.560 --> 00:16:03.370
to protect the forest.

00:16:03.370 --> 00:16:05.650
But the Forest Service is a
part of the Department of

00:16:05.650 --> 00:16:09.330
Agriculture, and the Department
of Agriculture

00:16:09.330 --> 00:16:13.980
looks upon these forests
as crops.

00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:17.770
The US Forest Service's real
job is to provide trees for

00:16:17.770 --> 00:16:20.060
these timber companies so they
can cut these trees from our

00:16:20.060 --> 00:16:22.780
national forests.

00:16:22.780 --> 00:16:26.740
They were cutting down these
massive old-growth trees, up

00:16:26.740 --> 00:16:30.145
to 750, even 1,000 years old,
that were just massive.

00:16:38.100 --> 00:16:40.695
But I think Jake was
tired of the talk.

00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:47.030
He was tired of just, you
know, philosophizing.

00:16:47.030 --> 00:16:50.570
You guys through talking
shit now, or what?

00:16:50.570 --> 00:16:52.713
Let's do it.

00:16:52.713 --> 00:17:07.443
[ROCK MUSIC PLAYING]

00:17:15.329 --> 00:17:18.300
This investigation was the
largest domestic terrorism

00:17:18.300 --> 00:17:21.000
case in the history of
the United States.

00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:24.630
And the very first ELF action
that occurred in the United

00:17:24.630 --> 00:17:28.060
States occurred at two
ranger stations in

00:17:28.060 --> 00:17:30.870
the district of Oregon.

00:17:30.870 --> 00:17:34.380
Mainstream, legitimate
environmental activists were

00:17:34.380 --> 00:17:39.670
absolutely shocked and disgusted
with the fire, and

00:17:39.670 --> 00:17:42.690
they saw the burning of the
Oakridge Ranger Station as a

00:17:42.690 --> 00:17:44.065
public relations disaster.

00:17:46.780 --> 00:17:49.540
In the months after the ranger
station fires, there was a

00:17:49.540 --> 00:17:53.230
split within the environmental
movement.

00:17:53.230 --> 00:17:57.060
In Eugene, which was quickly
becoming a hotbed of activism,

00:17:57.060 --> 00:18:00.140
a growing community of younger
environmentalists cheered on

00:18:00.140 --> 00:18:01.556
the arsons.

00:18:01.556 --> 00:18:05.000
But most environmentalists
argued that in a democracy,

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:08.045
public protest was still a
better way of making change.

00:18:08.045 --> 00:18:10.560
[CHANTING]

00:18:10.560 --> 00:18:13.810
In the summer of '97, just a
few months after the ranger

00:18:13.810 --> 00:18:18.010
station fires, an event took
place in downtown Eugene that

00:18:18.010 --> 00:18:20.870
for many, shook up the debate.

00:18:20.870 --> 00:18:24.620
There was this place downtown
that had 40 old heritage

00:18:24.620 --> 00:18:27.020
trees, just beautiful.

00:18:27.020 --> 00:18:29.610
And they were going to put in
a parking lot for Symantec,

00:18:29.610 --> 00:18:31.380
this big corporation,
next door.

00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:34.840
And they were going to cut
down the trees to do it.

00:18:34.840 --> 00:18:37.890
Activists began mobilizing
to save the trees.

00:18:37.890 --> 00:18:40.180
But as they prepared to take
the issue to the next city

00:18:40.180 --> 00:18:43.250
council meeting, the city
suddenly announced they it

00:18:43.250 --> 00:18:45.760
would cut the trees one day
before that public hearing.

00:18:49.420 --> 00:18:52.570
On Sunday morning, about 2:30
in the morning, about 11

00:18:52.570 --> 00:18:56.270
people went up into the
trees to prevent

00:18:56.270 --> 00:18:57.850
them from being cut.

00:18:57.850 --> 00:19:01.280
We just went and did it, hoping
that we could stave off

00:19:01.280 --> 00:19:04.130
the cutting for one day, until
that public hearing.

00:19:04.130 --> 00:19:08.430
Just for one day so the citizens
could talk to the

00:19:08.430 --> 00:19:10.990
city council the next day
about saving them.

00:19:10.990 --> 00:19:14.010
They came in right away wearing
riot gear and gas

00:19:14.010 --> 00:19:15.550
masks and stuff like that.

00:19:15.550 --> 00:19:19.430
So bang, bang, bang on the door
at 8:00 in the morning.

00:19:19.430 --> 00:19:21.250
Some kid says, get out
there, get out there.

00:19:21.250 --> 00:19:22.620
They're pepper-spraying
them in the trees.

00:19:22.620 --> 00:19:23.090
Get your camera.

00:19:23.090 --> 00:19:24.090
You gotta get there.

00:19:24.090 --> 00:19:24.620
I mean, they're

00:19:24.620 --> 00:19:27.431
pepper-spraying them right now.

00:19:27.431 --> 00:19:30.840
Hang in there, Jim!

00:19:30.840 --> 00:19:36.930
They came up in a fire truck
bucket and cut my pants leg up

00:19:36.930 --> 00:19:38.870
to my groin so they
could spray my

00:19:38.870 --> 00:19:40.680
leg with pepper spray.

00:19:40.680 --> 00:19:44.420
Cutting their pants and
pepper-spraying them in the

00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:47.840
ass and pepper-spraying them
in the balls, and while

00:19:47.840 --> 00:19:49.990
they're hanging from the
limbs, 40 feet up.

00:19:49.990 --> 00:19:52.300
People were on the street,
looking at this and going,

00:19:52.300 --> 00:19:55.090
what the fuck do you
think you're doing?

00:19:55.090 --> 00:19:56.840
And so people were
radicalized.

00:19:56.840 --> 00:19:58.490
They would start jumping
on the fence.

00:19:58.490 --> 00:20:00.460
They're going, quit that shit.

00:20:00.460 --> 00:20:04.036
They're teargassing the crowd
and pepper-spraying the crowd.

00:20:04.036 --> 00:20:07.636
It was just crazy, frantic
scene that day.

00:20:14.310 --> 00:20:19.270
And they used about 12 to 15
cans on Slim, and he stayed up

00:20:19.270 --> 00:20:23.565
for, I think, about six
or seven hours, man.

00:20:23.565 --> 00:20:27.525
[CHAINSAW BUZZING]

00:20:27.525 --> 00:20:28.775
No!

00:20:31.980 --> 00:20:35.890
And then they flushed me with
a bunch of water, took me to

00:20:35.890 --> 00:20:37.790
the hospital, and then
took me to jail.

00:20:37.790 --> 00:20:43.000
And so for the next 35 hours, I
was soaking in pepper spray.

00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:45.110
My hands were orange
for a week.

00:20:45.110 --> 00:20:48.410
And so the argument that you
need to work within the system

00:20:48.410 --> 00:20:51.010
was pretty well dashed
by what the cops did

00:20:51.010 --> 00:20:52.260
on that day in Eugene.

00:20:54.950 --> 00:20:59.940
And June 1 was really the day
that pissed off a lot of

00:20:59.940 --> 00:21:01.320
people in this town.

00:21:01.320 --> 00:21:12.320
[SOUNDS OF TRAFFIC]

00:21:12.320 --> 00:21:14.760
I remember reading about it.

00:21:14.760 --> 00:21:16.485
People were like, oh, we have
this footage, and you know, it

00:21:16.485 --> 00:21:17.500
was really intense.

00:21:17.500 --> 00:21:20.490
And that kind of stuff, like,
that's part of the story.

00:21:20.490 --> 00:21:21.740
That was part of the backdrop.

00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:26.070
It's crazy.

00:21:26.070 --> 00:21:26.560
It's crazy.

00:21:26.560 --> 00:21:29.180
I think a lot of moments like
that really erode people's

00:21:29.180 --> 00:21:30.950
belief that anything can
actually change.

00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:36.605
Next week it's four months
that I'm on house arrest.

00:21:39.300 --> 00:21:41.540
My days here are
really tedious.

00:21:41.540 --> 00:21:43.970
It's just really hard to
focus and do anything.

00:21:46.850 --> 00:21:51.410
Just thinking about my future
and how uncertain it is.

00:21:51.410 --> 00:21:53.382
I get really sad at
night, you know?

00:21:53.382 --> 00:21:55.200
I'd prefer to sleep straight
through so I

00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:56.200
don't have those moments.

00:21:56.200 --> 00:21:59.400
But I have them almost
every night, so.

00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:02.310
I've been doing OK, though,
all things considered.

00:22:02.310 --> 00:22:04.500
I mean, I feel like on one
level, I just have to be

00:22:04.500 --> 00:22:07.050
really thankful for what I have,
which is like a good

00:22:07.050 --> 00:22:10.520
family, really good friends.

00:22:10.520 --> 00:22:12.280
So I try to keep things
in perspective.

00:22:16.995 --> 00:22:18.450
Hold on one second.

00:22:18.450 --> 00:22:18.935
Hi.

00:22:18.935 --> 00:22:19.905
Hey, how are you?

00:22:19.905 --> 00:22:20.227
All right.

00:22:20.227 --> 00:22:20.875
How you doing?

00:22:20.875 --> 00:22:22.830
Good.

00:22:22.830 --> 00:22:24.750
Daniel was living with his
girlfriend when he was

00:22:24.750 --> 00:22:27.490
arrested, and she's moved
into his sister's

00:22:27.490 --> 00:22:28.753
apartment to be with him.

00:22:28.753 --> 00:22:31.780
You know, people are all
different, and some other

00:22:31.780 --> 00:22:33.760
people, if they were in my
position, they might have been

00:22:33.760 --> 00:22:36.920
totally, like, questioning
everything.

00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:38.756
But it's just--

00:22:38.756 --> 00:22:41.510
it's not me.

00:22:41.510 --> 00:22:46.880
I think that he feels the
dread every single day.

00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:51.430
It definitely removes some of
the life from his personality.

00:22:55.921 --> 00:22:59.420
[PHONE RINGING]

00:22:59.420 --> 00:23:01.220
Hello?

00:23:01.220 --> 00:23:01.840
Hey, what's up?

00:23:01.840 --> 00:23:03.090
How are you?

00:23:06.050 --> 00:23:07.300
Wait, wait, wait.

00:23:09.650 --> 00:23:10.720
So wait, wait, I'm sorry--

00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:12.540
he's cooperating to
the full extent?

00:23:21.340 --> 00:23:24.130
Six of Daniel's co-defendants
have appeared in court to

00:23:24.130 --> 00:23:26.550
accept plea deals.

00:23:26.550 --> 00:23:29.210
In exchange for reduced
sentences, they've agreed to

00:23:29.210 --> 00:23:31.950
testify in the government's
case against the remaining

00:23:31.950 --> 00:23:34.740
defendants.

00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:38.460
It hurts that people that I
trusted and cared about turned

00:23:38.460 --> 00:23:40.550
their back on me.

00:23:40.550 --> 00:23:42.510
To be a cooperating witness,
that's something

00:23:42.510 --> 00:23:43.290
other people can do.

00:23:43.290 --> 00:23:44.490
I'm just not gonna do it.

00:23:44.490 --> 00:23:46.460
'Cause I just have to live with
myself, and I'm not going

00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:50.440
to be that person and start
spewing out crap just to get

00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:55.210
myself out of a situation that's
not very pleasant, so.

00:23:55.210 --> 00:23:58.150
[SIGHS DEEPLY]

00:24:01.590 --> 00:24:04.437
I'd want him to do whatever
he needed to do

00:24:04.437 --> 00:24:07.900
to not go to prison.

00:24:07.900 --> 00:24:11.450
But I would never want
him to compromise

00:24:11.450 --> 00:24:14.580
his values or beliefs.

00:24:14.580 --> 00:24:18.050
So if he has to choose, he'll
be facing life in prison.

00:24:22.620 --> 00:24:24.850
I made the choice
to be with him.

00:24:24.850 --> 00:24:26.510
And after he was arrested,
I made the choice

00:24:26.510 --> 00:24:28.520
to stay with him.

00:24:28.520 --> 00:24:31.980
I mean, that's what you do when
you're in a relationship

00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:33.090
with someone.

00:24:33.090 --> 00:24:35.090
Just because something really
difficult comes up doesn't

00:24:35.090 --> 00:24:38.200
mean you just run
away, you know?

00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:41.235
So I think we should
get married.

00:25:00.874 --> 00:25:05.338
Daniel, I see you with Jenny,
and you're wonderful with her.

00:25:05.338 --> 00:25:07.322
You're good for each other.

00:25:07.322 --> 00:25:08.314
You've got a great chemistry.

00:25:08.314 --> 00:25:09.306
And--

00:25:09.306 --> 00:25:11.786
and I love you both.

00:25:11.786 --> 00:25:12.778
Congratulations.

00:25:12.778 --> 00:25:15.310
[APPLAUSE]

00:25:15.310 --> 00:25:19.950
This kid faces 335 years plus
life in prison, and he's

00:25:19.950 --> 00:25:22.934
getting married.

00:25:22.934 --> 00:25:26.877
I want to kind of grab the
positive and think that this

00:25:26.877 --> 00:25:28.930
is going to work out in the end,
everything's going to be

00:25:28.930 --> 00:25:33.140
OK, and you know, there's
nothing to stress about.

00:25:33.140 --> 00:25:35.500
But there is.

00:25:42.770 --> 00:25:43.380
Hey.

00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:45.206
Oh, if it isn't my sister.

00:25:45.206 --> 00:25:45.698
How are you?

00:25:45.698 --> 00:25:46.682
How are you?

00:25:46.682 --> 00:25:47.174
Perfect timing.

00:25:47.174 --> 00:25:48.430
Oh, I'm freaking hot.

00:25:48.430 --> 00:25:48.880
That's why I'm out here.

00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:50.760
Let me see your ring.

00:25:50.760 --> 00:25:51.700
Oh.

00:25:51.700 --> 00:25:52.640
Mine's nicer.

00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:54.520
[LAUGHS]

00:25:54.520 --> 00:25:55.980
And by nicer, she means
more money.

00:25:55.980 --> 00:25:58.235
A diamond.

00:25:58.235 --> 00:26:02.040
His is made with, like, some
recycled-type metal that

00:26:02.040 --> 00:26:03.893
doesn't hurt anything or
anybody, and mine's made of

00:26:03.893 --> 00:26:04.950
good old diamond.

00:26:04.950 --> 00:26:07.755
[LAUGHS]

00:26:07.755 --> 00:26:08.242
Come on.

00:26:08.242 --> 00:26:10.190
Let's go have a good time.

00:26:21.880 --> 00:26:25.130
It's easy to discount the
environmental movement as a

00:26:25.130 --> 00:26:29.520
bunch of wackos and hippies
and arsonists.

00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:32.730
But it's not like that.

00:26:32.730 --> 00:26:36.930
There are businessmen and moms
and dads and scientists and

00:26:36.930 --> 00:26:37.940
loggers themselves.

00:26:37.940 --> 00:26:39.950
There are people from every
walk of life that

00:26:39.950 --> 00:26:41.200
get involved in this.

00:26:45.940 --> 00:26:50.450
I've spent several years
of my life doing

00:26:50.450 --> 00:26:52.760
logging in the woods.

00:26:52.760 --> 00:26:57.220
I come with a little different
perspective than a lot of the

00:26:57.220 --> 00:27:01.340
environmental crowd or
the logging crowd.

00:27:01.340 --> 00:27:02.990
I've got a little
of both in me.

00:27:02.990 --> 00:27:04.980
I'm OK with cutting
down trees.

00:27:04.980 --> 00:27:06.560
I just don't have an
issue with it.

00:27:06.560 --> 00:27:11.050
But I'm not OK with cutting
them all down.

00:27:11.050 --> 00:27:16.190
The industry tends to call the
environmentalists radical.

00:27:16.190 --> 00:27:20.030
The reality is that 95% of the
standing native forests in the

00:27:20.030 --> 00:27:23.460
United States have
been cut down.

00:27:23.460 --> 00:27:27.660
It's not radical to try
and save the last 5%.

00:27:27.660 --> 00:27:31.000
What's radical is logging 95%.

00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:32.250
This is radical.

00:27:35.090 --> 00:27:38.450
This is a piece of
a big old tree.

00:27:38.450 --> 00:27:42.960
This tree probably sprouted just
about the time Columbus

00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.830
sailed the ocean blue.

00:27:45.830 --> 00:27:49.023
Looks about 500 years old,
somewhere in there.

00:27:49.023 --> 00:27:51.950
You know, the suckers, if they
could talk, probably say it'd

00:27:51.950 --> 00:27:55.100
been pretty boring up until
about 75 years ago, when all

00:27:55.100 --> 00:27:58.970
hell broke loose out here on
the ridge and they started

00:27:58.970 --> 00:27:59.790
cutting them down.

00:27:59.790 --> 00:28:02.470
Most of them are gone now, so
we won't be seeing any of

00:28:02.470 --> 00:28:04.920
these for at least another
500 years.

00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:08.420
And that's if we leave
them alone.

00:28:08.420 --> 00:28:09.670
These are amazing old trees.

00:28:15.450 --> 00:28:17.740
I moved out west in
October of '98.

00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:27.410
I got out to Northern
California.

00:28:27.410 --> 00:28:30.923
I had never seen trees
like that before.

00:28:30.923 --> 00:28:35.110
It had a really profound
impact on me.

00:28:35.110 --> 00:28:38.150
I was already quite radicalized,
but I couldn't

00:28:38.150 --> 00:28:40.870
believe the fact that people
accepted what was going on.

00:28:44.450 --> 00:28:47.930
I have memories of, like, for
the first time, seeing log

00:28:47.930 --> 00:28:49.890
trucks and being like, whoa.

00:28:52.830 --> 00:28:55.880
You saw the mills.

00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:58.930
Or you go into the forest and
you stumble upon a clear-cut.

00:28:58.930 --> 00:29:05.476
Like, it just blew me away,
just the arrogance of it.

00:29:05.476 --> 00:29:09.390
It's like, man, this
is butchered.

00:29:09.390 --> 00:29:12.630
It made me think, like, why
are we being so gentle?

00:29:12.630 --> 00:29:15.120
Why are we so gentle in our
activism when this is what's

00:29:15.120 --> 00:29:16.492
happened, you know?

00:29:21.310 --> 00:29:24.430
After the ranger station fires,
Jake Ferguson and

00:29:24.430 --> 00:29:26.920
members of the fledgling
ELF set their

00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:29.930
sights on new targets.

00:29:29.930 --> 00:29:32.840
They came across an Associated
Press article about the

00:29:32.840 --> 00:29:36.910
rounding up of wild horses
from government land.

00:29:36.910 --> 00:29:39.920
The horses were being sent to
slaughterhouses, including the

00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:44.590
Cavel West plant in nearby
Redmond, Oregon.

00:29:44.590 --> 00:29:47.415
There were so many horses being
processed at the plant

00:29:47.415 --> 00:29:50.270
that horse blood would sometimes
overwhelm the town's

00:29:50.270 --> 00:29:54.190
water treatment facility
and shut it down.

00:29:54.190 --> 00:29:58.440
And for 10 years, people from
the area had tried and failed

00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:00.410
to stop the plant.

00:30:00.410 --> 00:30:05.740
But on July 21, 1997, Jake
Ferguson and three others

00:30:05.740 --> 00:30:08.670
slipped into the facility in
the middle of the night and

00:30:08.670 --> 00:30:11.710
burned it to the ground.

00:30:11.710 --> 00:30:15.330
The company was never able to
rebuild, and the arson became

00:30:15.330 --> 00:30:17.530
a model for the group.

00:30:17.530 --> 00:30:20.050
In one night, they had
accomplished what years of

00:30:20.050 --> 00:30:22.590
letter-writing and picketing
had never been able to do.

00:30:26.810 --> 00:30:30.780
They expanded and took
on new targets.

00:30:30.780 --> 00:30:34.460
They burned timber company
headquarters, a Bureau of Land

00:30:34.460 --> 00:30:38.360
Management office, and a $12
million ski lodge at Vail,

00:30:38.360 --> 00:30:41.070
Colorado to protest the resort's
expansion into

00:30:41.070 --> 00:30:44.290
national forests.

00:30:44.290 --> 00:30:47.690
An ELF press office was opened
by activists who did not know

00:30:47.690 --> 00:30:50.440
the identities of
the ELF members.

00:30:50.440 --> 00:30:51.850
How do they contact you?

00:30:51.850 --> 00:30:52.885
Anonymously.

00:30:52.885 --> 00:30:53.970
But I mean, what is that?

00:30:53.970 --> 00:30:55.830
Like a package drop
on your doorstep?

00:30:55.830 --> 00:31:00.330
They publicized the fires and
explained the group's actions.

00:31:00.330 --> 00:31:03.280
When a building burns down,
they have to do a

00:31:03.280 --> 00:31:04.230
news story about it.

00:31:04.230 --> 00:31:05.870
That's why the Earth Liberation
Front burned down

00:31:05.870 --> 00:31:08.830
the building in the first
place, to get exposure.

00:31:08.830 --> 00:31:12.170
We were there to help explain
why that building burned down,

00:31:12.170 --> 00:31:14.020
what it was doing in the
first place that was

00:31:14.020 --> 00:31:16.830
angering people so much.

00:31:16.830 --> 00:31:19.170
A lot of what the Earth
Liberation Front did was

00:31:19.170 --> 00:31:22.130
considered economic sabotage.

00:31:22.130 --> 00:31:24.490
These corporations exist
to make money.

00:31:24.490 --> 00:31:26.810
All of a sudden, they're losing
money, so they have to

00:31:26.810 --> 00:31:29.180
reassess their activities.

00:31:29.180 --> 00:31:32.070
Another thing that happens is
that the building that was

00:31:32.070 --> 00:31:34.690
dumping toxic waste, for
example, into the river one

00:31:34.690 --> 00:31:37.875
day is unable to dump
that waste tomorrow.

00:31:37.875 --> 00:31:41.300
The press office encouraged
people to start their own ELF

00:31:41.300 --> 00:31:45.310
cells, but mandated that their
fires not harm any life.

00:31:45.310 --> 00:31:48.470
Take initiative, form your own
cell, and do what needs to be

00:31:48.470 --> 00:31:51.770
done to protect all life
on this planet.

00:31:51.770 --> 00:31:55.600
The idea spread, and new
anonymous cells popped up in

00:31:55.600 --> 00:31:57.320
other parts of the country.

00:31:57.320 --> 00:32:00.480
The Earth Liberation Front is
turning up the heat again,

00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:03.900
igniting devastating blazes
all across the country.

00:32:03.900 --> 00:32:06.230
A biology lab at the University
of Minnesota.

00:32:06.230 --> 00:32:07.930
Bloomington, Indiana.

00:32:07.930 --> 00:32:10.070
New York's Long Island.

00:32:10.070 --> 00:32:12.913
Now some say ELF is
in New England.

00:32:12.913 --> 00:32:18.120
[HORNS HONKING]

00:32:18.120 --> 00:32:22.300
Back in Eugene, people
were celebrating.

00:32:22.300 --> 00:32:25.510
We had no idea that it was
people from our neighborhood,

00:32:25.510 --> 00:32:26.970
and they were friends of ours.

00:32:26.970 --> 00:32:29.760
But we were hearing about what
was happening, and we were

00:32:29.760 --> 00:32:31.010
celebrating.

00:32:35.360 --> 00:32:37.960
I don't think it was just
the ELF that started

00:32:37.960 --> 00:32:39.770
ratcheting things up.

00:32:39.770 --> 00:32:43.140
I think activists all over the
Northwest were also kicking it

00:32:43.140 --> 00:32:44.860
up a notch.

00:32:44.860 --> 00:32:48.290
They thought there was a
possibility of really making

00:32:48.290 --> 00:32:50.650
things change.

00:32:50.650 --> 00:32:52.150
Just have to work at it a little
harder, be a little

00:32:52.150 --> 00:32:52.910
more radical.

00:32:52.910 --> 00:33:03.263
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:33:03.263 --> 00:33:06.221
I'm not turning it off,
[INAUDIBLE] under.

00:33:06.221 --> 00:33:07.700
There's an old woman.

00:33:07.700 --> 00:33:09.179
She's 80 years old.

00:33:16.574 --> 00:33:21.011
[HORN BLARING]

00:33:26.500 --> 00:33:29.200
There was a sort of progression
of radicalism that

00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:30.930
happened in Eugene.

00:33:30.930 --> 00:33:36.290
And so the police were also
amping up their presence

00:33:36.290 --> 00:33:40.240
because we were amping
up our presence.

00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:42.710
Literally, we were having
two protests

00:33:42.710 --> 00:33:46.270
a week, major protests.

00:33:46.270 --> 00:33:51.260
And so you can imagine what
law enforcement went like.

00:33:51.260 --> 00:33:54.960
I was doing undercover work
around the Eugene area.

00:33:54.960 --> 00:33:57.950
We were looking for some of
these individuals that were

00:33:57.950 --> 00:33:59.450
causing the mayhem
around Eugene.

00:34:02.120 --> 00:34:05.820
I think it was well-known in the
movement that they could

00:34:05.820 --> 00:34:11.860
probe and push and get us to
react in a way that oftentimes

00:34:11.860 --> 00:34:13.445
didn't look very good.

00:34:13.445 --> 00:34:13.941
Back!

00:34:13.941 --> 00:34:15.191
Get back!

00:34:18.405 --> 00:34:19.893
Hey!

00:34:19.893 --> 00:34:20.885
Hey!

00:34:20.885 --> 00:34:21.381
Hey!

00:34:21.381 --> 00:34:22.869
Hey!

00:34:22.869 --> 00:34:28.340
[SHOUTING]

00:34:28.340 --> 00:34:31.909
But we were getting rocks and
bottles and that kind of

00:34:31.909 --> 00:34:33.784
thing, fire, thrown at us.

00:34:33.784 --> 00:34:35.760
That just hadn't happened
before.

00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:37.170
Out of the street!

00:34:37.170 --> 00:34:38.580
You fucker!

00:34:38.580 --> 00:34:42.019
To say that emotions don't play
into that would be folly.

00:34:42.019 --> 00:34:44.140
I mean, that's not true.

00:34:44.140 --> 00:34:47.890
It is personal to take a rock.

00:34:47.890 --> 00:34:55.330
[SCREAMING]

00:34:55.330 --> 00:34:58.430
And people's views got hardened
and more radicalized

00:34:58.430 --> 00:35:02.630
from what the police were doing
to them within Eugene or

00:35:02.630 --> 00:35:06.516
other campaigns that were going
on around the Northwest.

00:35:06.516 --> 00:35:09.370
Are you going to release?

00:35:09.370 --> 00:35:12.374
Why are you doing this to us?

00:35:12.374 --> 00:35:12.776
OK.

00:35:12.776 --> 00:35:15.100
Are you going to release?

00:35:15.100 --> 00:35:16.350
Who's going to release?

00:35:18.760 --> 00:35:19.690
Oh, I love you.

00:35:19.690 --> 00:35:20.620
I love you.

00:35:20.620 --> 00:35:21.665
I only did one eye.

00:35:21.665 --> 00:35:23.980
I'm going to do the other eye
if you don't release.

00:35:23.980 --> 00:35:26.430
Please don't hurt me.

00:35:26.430 --> 00:35:28.390
I'm trying to protect
the trees.

00:35:28.390 --> 00:35:30.350
Violence should not be used
on non-violent protesters.

00:35:30.350 --> 00:35:31.820
Leave her alone!

00:35:31.820 --> 00:35:33.290
Stop it!

00:35:33.290 --> 00:35:34.270
Stop it!

00:35:34.270 --> 00:35:35.750
Stop it!

00:35:35.750 --> 00:35:38.440
When those people were getting
attacked and stepped on and

00:35:38.440 --> 00:35:40.950
pepper-sprayed in their face
while they were locked down, I

00:35:40.950 --> 00:35:43.020
thought protest and civil
disobedience--

00:35:43.020 --> 00:35:44.490
what's the point Why bother?

00:35:44.490 --> 00:35:45.420
You know?

00:35:45.420 --> 00:35:46.990
It's not getting us anywhere.

00:35:46.990 --> 00:35:51.276
We're getting victimized by
their police, you know?

00:35:51.276 --> 00:35:51.940
I don't know.

00:35:51.940 --> 00:35:55.100
I think I, like a lot of people
I knew at the time,

00:35:55.100 --> 00:35:59.170
experienced a massive loss of
faith that systemic change

00:35:59.170 --> 00:36:03.740
could happen through the system
regulating itself or

00:36:03.740 --> 00:36:06.015
reforming itself.

00:36:06.015 --> 00:36:07.250
Good evening.

00:36:07.250 --> 00:36:09.560
When the World Trade Summit was
planned for Seattle, the

00:36:09.560 --> 00:36:12.810
administration obviously hoped
it would be a triumph for Bill

00:36:12.810 --> 00:36:15.830
Clinton in the closing months
of his presidency.

00:36:15.830 --> 00:36:19.720
Instead, it's been a nightmare
of protest and demonstrations

00:36:19.720 --> 00:36:21.590
in the streets.

00:36:21.590 --> 00:36:26.390
In 1999, tens of thousands of
people converged on Seattle to

00:36:26.390 --> 00:36:31.920
protest the WTO and its effect
on the environment and labor.

00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:34.550
They blockaded the streets
using nonviolent civil

00:36:34.550 --> 00:36:35.901
disobedience.

00:36:35.901 --> 00:36:40.320
(CHANTING) Peaceful protest,
peaceful protest.

00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:43.150
The police responded with force
to clear the streets.

00:36:43.150 --> 00:36:49.913
If you do not go, you will
be the subject of pain.

00:36:53.809 --> 00:36:55.270
Oh, [INAUDIBLE]

00:36:55.270 --> 00:36:57.220
shooting poison.

00:36:57.220 --> 00:37:00.910
But while the authorities were
focused on the demonstrators,

00:37:00.910 --> 00:37:03.730
another group appeared that
included current and future

00:37:03.730 --> 00:37:05.370
members of the ELF.

00:37:05.370 --> 00:37:07.590
I had met these people in
Seattle, and I was introduced

00:37:07.590 --> 00:37:10.970
to kind of a larger group
of individuals.

00:37:10.970 --> 00:37:13.560
Here we are in our
black clothes.

00:37:13.560 --> 00:37:16.340
Downtown Seattle was just full
of corporations that are

00:37:16.340 --> 00:37:19.360
wreaking devastation and
destruction on the planet, and

00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:21.225
people were just like,
OK, let's do it.

00:37:21.225 --> 00:37:21.405
[MUSIC - RAGE AGAINST
THE MACHINE

00:37:21.405 --> 00:37:22.655
"SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE"]

00:37:25.375 --> 00:37:27.650
These businesses, they're not
going to bow to people dancing

00:37:27.650 --> 00:37:28.670
in the streets.

00:37:28.670 --> 00:37:31.220
They're not going to bow to
people dressed as, you know,

00:37:31.220 --> 00:37:32.710
giant sea turtles or so on.

00:37:32.710 --> 00:37:33.690
They care about one thing.

00:37:33.690 --> 00:37:34.730
They care about capitalism.

00:37:34.730 --> 00:37:36.670
Unless we put a dent in their
pocket, what good is--

00:37:36.670 --> 00:37:37.420
How are you going to do that?

00:37:37.420 --> 00:37:39.070
How are you going to put
a dent in their pocket?

00:37:39.070 --> 00:37:41.671
Hopefully by causing
property damage.

00:37:41.671 --> 00:37:41.929
[MUSIC - RAGE AGAINST
THE MACHINE

00:37:41.929 --> 00:37:43.179
"SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE"]

00:37:48.886 --> 00:37:51.580
I'd never breathed tear gas,
pepper spray, or saw rubber

00:37:51.580 --> 00:37:54.065
bullets or concussion grenades
until that point.

00:37:54.065 --> 00:37:55.240
I mean, it was insane.

00:37:55.240 --> 00:37:57.260
I really felt like, this
was like a war zone.

00:37:57.260 --> 00:37:58.774
Like wow, holy crap.

00:37:58.774 --> 00:37:59.038
[MUSIC - RAGE AGAINST
THE MACHINE

00:37:59.038 --> 00:38:00.288
"SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE"]

00:38:13.620 --> 00:38:16.520
It felt good to take out my
rage on these corporate

00:38:16.520 --> 00:38:18.510
windows, because they
had caused so much

00:38:18.510 --> 00:38:20.460
destruction, in my mind.

00:38:20.460 --> 00:38:21.270
Stop it!

00:38:21.270 --> 00:38:21.820
Stop it!

00:38:21.820 --> 00:38:24.840
It created, obviously, a
huge conversation and

00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:25.980
dialogue and fight.

00:38:25.980 --> 00:38:28.932
This is not what the
protest was about.

00:38:28.932 --> 00:38:30.408
[ALARM RINGING]

00:38:30.408 --> 00:38:32.880
People work hard for
their property.

00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:34.560
Vandalism is vandalism.

00:38:34.560 --> 00:38:35.940
Destruction is destruction.

00:38:35.940 --> 00:38:39.030
Whether it's of lives or
property, it's not acceptable.

00:38:39.030 --> 00:38:41.480
What do you think of the
Boston Tea Party?

00:38:41.480 --> 00:38:43.030
I thought it was wonderful.

00:38:43.030 --> 00:38:44.380
Ah, thank you.

00:38:44.380 --> 00:38:46.170
Thank you.

00:38:46.170 --> 00:38:48.830
50 cents, read all about it.

00:38:48.830 --> 00:38:50.460
I think people have
a very Pollyanna

00:38:50.460 --> 00:38:51.710
viewpoint of social change.

00:38:54.430 --> 00:38:57.880
No real social changes happen
without pressure, without

00:38:57.880 --> 00:39:01.730
force, without, some would say,
intimidating governments

00:39:01.730 --> 00:39:03.690
and corporations into changing
their behavior.

00:39:08.028 --> 00:39:09.956
[LAUGHS]

00:39:09.956 --> 00:39:14.130
Oh, it's so weird to talk
about this stuff.

00:39:14.130 --> 00:39:17.740
I took part in the black bloc
at the WTO, and the goal of

00:39:17.740 --> 00:39:19.820
the black bloc was to just
send a message, an

00:39:19.820 --> 00:39:23.950
anti-capitalist message, that
consumer America is destroying

00:39:23.950 --> 00:39:27.590
the world and destroying
the planet.

00:39:27.590 --> 00:39:29.530
And that was the first time
that we met a lot of other

00:39:29.530 --> 00:39:31.710
people that ended up being
involved in the arson.

00:39:38.180 --> 00:39:41.680
After the WTO, I decided to
move to Eugene to keep in

00:39:41.680 --> 00:39:45.250
touch with some of these people
that I met in Seattle.

00:39:45.250 --> 00:39:48.240
And I started becoming a really
different person.

00:39:48.240 --> 00:39:51.560
Daniel was very involved
in the issues and ideas

00:39:51.560 --> 00:39:52.940
surrounding Eugene.

00:39:52.940 --> 00:39:54.490
He was very social.

00:39:54.490 --> 00:39:56.400
He seemed to know everybody,
and everybody

00:39:56.400 --> 00:39:58.600
seemed to know him--

00:39:58.600 --> 00:40:00.530
including the cops.

00:40:00.530 --> 00:40:04.675
Daniel was kind of known as
a leader around the area.

00:40:07.180 --> 00:40:11.080
He'd show up at protests or
gatherings, and you could

00:40:11.080 --> 00:40:12.770
always see that he
was somebody that

00:40:12.770 --> 00:40:13.700
people looked up to.

00:40:13.700 --> 00:40:16.900
You know, you see who's serious
and who's not, based

00:40:16.900 --> 00:40:18.470
on how they're acting,
what they're saying.

00:40:18.470 --> 00:40:21.390
And So somewhere along the line,
it became obvious that I

00:40:21.390 --> 00:40:22.220
was someone that was interested

00:40:22.220 --> 00:40:23.640
in doing other stuff.

00:40:23.640 --> 00:40:26.730
I met Jake in the
neighborhood.

00:40:26.730 --> 00:40:29.235
There was some allure about him
just being quiet and kind

00:40:29.235 --> 00:40:31.730
of to himself.

00:40:31.730 --> 00:40:34.220
And being there really set
some things in motion.

00:40:48.250 --> 00:40:51.550
The more radical environmental
community have, in my opinion,

00:40:51.550 --> 00:40:54.490
a misconception about this
industry and what we do.

00:41:00.370 --> 00:41:02.320
It's more than just a job.

00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:05.560
I'm a third-generation
lumberman.

00:41:05.560 --> 00:41:07.600
My son works in the industry.

00:41:07.600 --> 00:41:10.750
I want him to carry on, and when
he has kids, I want them

00:41:10.750 --> 00:41:12.000
to carry on.

00:41:14.340 --> 00:41:17.290
You can't be in the lumber
industry without having trees

00:41:17.290 --> 00:41:20.690
to cut, so it's ridiculous for
people to think we're going to

00:41:20.690 --> 00:41:24.695
go out there and cut
the last tree.

00:41:24.695 --> 00:41:27.180
I think the biggest
misconception is that we're

00:41:27.180 --> 00:41:32.110
out there just knocking the
forest down, we're just--

00:41:32.110 --> 00:41:33.640
we're termites.

00:41:33.640 --> 00:41:37.610
We just rampage through the
forest and we leave it a mess

00:41:37.610 --> 00:41:39.390
and we move on.

00:41:39.390 --> 00:41:40.510
Does it have an impact?

00:41:40.510 --> 00:41:41.350
Certainly.

00:41:41.350 --> 00:41:44.160
Nobody likes the looks
of a fresh harvest.

00:41:44.160 --> 00:41:46.810
But we really do regrow
these trees.

00:41:46.810 --> 00:41:49.010
We plant six trees for every
tree we harvest.

00:41:49.010 --> 00:41:49.840
That's the law.

00:41:49.840 --> 00:41:51.360
I mean, it's just flat-out
the law.

00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:52.560
And people don't
break the law.

00:41:52.560 --> 00:41:55.330
You can't get away with it in
Oregon or any place else.

00:41:55.330 --> 00:41:58.970
Being an environmentalist is
simply respecting the land and

00:41:58.970 --> 00:42:00.780
the atmosphere around you.

00:42:00.780 --> 00:42:02.296
In that regard, I'm an
environmentalist.

00:42:06.875 --> 00:42:10.210
Eugene has a commercial
railroad that

00:42:10.210 --> 00:42:12.820
goes through town.

00:42:12.820 --> 00:42:15.090
It wasn't uncommon to see just,
like, plywood after

00:42:15.090 --> 00:42:20.010
plywood and company names
stamped onto it.

00:42:20.010 --> 00:42:23.460
That's definitely how I heard
about Superior Lumber, just by

00:42:23.460 --> 00:42:27.020
seeing their half-mile long
train full of forest go by.

00:42:33.180 --> 00:42:36.540
They were logging old growth,
logging just massive trees out

00:42:36.540 --> 00:42:37.980
of the areas that had previously
been pretty

00:42:37.980 --> 00:42:39.230
inaccessible.

00:42:41.540 --> 00:42:44.220
Sometimes, when you see things
you love being destroyed, you

00:42:44.220 --> 00:42:45.470
just want to destroy
those things.

00:42:48.850 --> 00:42:50.100
So I felt like the action
was justified.

00:42:57.110 --> 00:43:00.740
We were quite surprised that
we had been targeted.

00:43:00.740 --> 00:43:03.830
I believe I was invited to
participate in Superior Lumber

00:43:03.830 --> 00:43:08.140
by Meyerhoff to be a lookout,
along with Suzanne.

00:43:08.140 --> 00:43:11.000
But I met Jacob and Kevin
right before the

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:12.840
action, Kevin Tubbs.

00:43:12.840 --> 00:43:15.660
They got together some
weeks before, did a

00:43:15.660 --> 00:43:18.690
surveillance of it.

00:43:18.690 --> 00:43:20.730
It was in an isolated area.

00:43:20.730 --> 00:43:22.305
There's no viable
security there.

00:43:25.390 --> 00:43:29.080
They figured out where they
should place the devices.

00:43:29.080 --> 00:43:31.090
They came back and prepared
the devices.

00:43:37.030 --> 00:43:39.070
Put them in plastic Tupperware
containers.

00:43:39.070 --> 00:43:41.430
Made sure that the
containers were

00:43:41.430 --> 00:43:43.205
fingerprint-free and DNA-clean.

00:43:43.205 --> 00:43:45.520
They always wore gloves.

00:43:45.520 --> 00:43:46.720
I felt nervous from
the get-go.

00:43:46.720 --> 00:43:49.330
For one, I was staying in this
house where everything was

00:43:49.330 --> 00:43:52.160
stored, and it was someone
else's house that didn't know

00:43:52.160 --> 00:43:53.260
about the action.

00:43:53.260 --> 00:43:56.610
On the night of the
arson, they drove

00:43:56.610 --> 00:43:58.896
to the staging area.

00:43:58.896 --> 00:44:01.130
They put on their masks.

00:44:01.130 --> 00:44:02.420
They did radio checks.

00:44:02.420 --> 00:44:04.350
They had a police scanner.

00:44:04.350 --> 00:44:06.300
It's positively nerve-wracking.

00:44:06.300 --> 00:44:08.830
I used to get really sick before
actions, and like throw

00:44:08.830 --> 00:44:12.480
up, and just get nervous
and just in a zone.

00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:14.400
I mean, I think you
have to get--

00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:16.290
when you're doing something
that intense, even as a

00:44:16.290 --> 00:44:18.900
lookout, you're just like
freaked out, 'cause you just

00:44:18.900 --> 00:44:21.560
don't know how anything's
going to go.

00:44:21.560 --> 00:44:24.010
I was in the back of the van,
and I was actually kind of by

00:44:24.010 --> 00:44:25.370
myself in the back of the van.

00:44:25.370 --> 00:44:29.520
So I was just kind of thinking
to myself, and I think Kevin

00:44:29.520 --> 00:44:30.730
and Jake were in the
front of the van.

00:44:30.730 --> 00:44:31.910
They were just listening
to music.

00:44:31.910 --> 00:44:33.630
And so it was fairly relaxed.

00:44:33.630 --> 00:44:35.772
People weren't really talking
a whole lot, but you know,

00:44:35.772 --> 00:44:37.270
your adrenaline's going.

00:44:37.270 --> 00:44:40.830
Ms. Savoie and Mr. McGowan were
the lookouts, and they

00:44:40.830 --> 00:44:45.290
staged north and south
of the building.

00:44:45.290 --> 00:44:49.420
I was stationed at
a pay phone.

00:44:49.420 --> 00:44:51.810
Everybody else was dressed in
all black, because everybody

00:44:51.810 --> 00:44:55.550
wanted to blend into
the tonight.

00:44:55.550 --> 00:44:58.700
However, I dressed in somewhat
darker clothing, but I looked

00:44:58.700 --> 00:44:59.390
fairly normal.

00:44:59.390 --> 00:45:01.975
I just had a scarf that I could
wrap around my face in

00:45:01.975 --> 00:45:03.080
case somebody passed by.

00:45:03.080 --> 00:45:05.500
And then I got dropped off kind
of on the side of the

00:45:05.500 --> 00:45:08.590
road, and I just kind of crawled
into this into space,

00:45:08.590 --> 00:45:11.890
this shoulder with
a bunch of ivy.

00:45:11.890 --> 00:45:15.830
Mr. Meyerhoff and Mr. Ferguson
then placed the five-gallon

00:45:15.830 --> 00:45:19.690
fuel containers and activated
the timing devices.

00:45:19.690 --> 00:45:23.750
It was done within 15 minutes,
and I got picked

00:45:23.750 --> 00:45:25.400
up, and away we went.

00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:28.210
It was somewhere between 2:00
or 3:00 AM when I was home,

00:45:28.210 --> 00:45:30.850
sound asleep, and I
got a phone call.

00:45:30.850 --> 00:45:33.880
And of course, any time you get
a phone call at 2:00 AM in

00:45:33.880 --> 00:45:35.510
the morning, it's
not good news.

00:45:49.950 --> 00:45:54.810
It turned the office into
just a fiery oven.

00:45:54.810 --> 00:45:57.760
I mean, I don't know how hot
it got in here, but we had

00:45:57.760 --> 00:45:59.530
keyboards that were--

00:45:59.530 --> 00:46:00.990
you couldn't tell one
key from the other.

00:46:00.990 --> 00:46:02.285
They were just melted
together.

00:46:08.650 --> 00:46:10.110
I went up to Portland
and wrote the

00:46:10.110 --> 00:46:13.000
communique and sent it in.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:14.230
Even then, it wasn't real.

00:46:14.230 --> 00:46:17.020
It was just, like, still this
kind of this cartoonish thing.

00:46:17.020 --> 00:46:19.960
And it wasn't real until I
really saw the newspapers.

00:46:19.960 --> 00:46:22.340
Seeing the man from the
company, I think Steve

00:46:22.340 --> 00:46:24.910
Swanson, just walking through
this charred remains, and I

00:46:24.910 --> 00:46:27.380
was like, holy crap.

00:46:27.380 --> 00:46:31.700
That was a major blow to our
mental psyche, at least

00:46:31.700 --> 00:46:34.090
in the short run.

00:46:34.090 --> 00:46:38.460
Just felt like a big
hole in my heart.

00:46:38.460 --> 00:46:40.860
In Eugene, people were jazzed.

00:46:40.860 --> 00:46:44.280
When the big bad bully gets hit
in the stomach and feels a

00:46:44.280 --> 00:46:47.850
little something, maybe
a little fear or

00:46:47.850 --> 00:46:50.170
whatever, that felt good.

00:46:50.170 --> 00:46:51.120
It was exciting.

00:46:51.120 --> 00:46:56.190
The next day, I felt like wow,
I've actually done something

00:46:56.190 --> 00:46:58.030
where it stopped.

00:46:58.030 --> 00:46:59.790
I didn't have a problem
with what I was doing.

00:46:59.790 --> 00:47:00.745
I thought it was effective.

00:47:00.745 --> 00:47:04.110
It was $1 million or something
like that.

00:47:04.110 --> 00:47:08.980
You know, it's like, when you're
involved with it and

00:47:08.980 --> 00:47:10.860
you're in the thick of it, it's
hard to look at all the

00:47:10.860 --> 00:47:13.480
consequences and the real
repercussions of that.

00:47:13.480 --> 00:47:17.950
Like did this action push them
in a better direction?

00:47:17.950 --> 00:47:19.020
Did it scare them?

00:47:19.020 --> 00:47:22.210
Did it help the movement
in any capacity

00:47:22.210 --> 00:47:23.970
on old-growth logging?

00:47:23.970 --> 00:47:26.080
There's lots of questions, but
I don't think, at the time, I

00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:27.720
was asking those questions
too much.

00:47:35.530 --> 00:47:37.350
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:37.350 --> 00:47:37.880
Totally.

00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:40.520
All right, well, that's great.

00:47:40.520 --> 00:47:42.020
I guess I'll see you
in a little bit.

00:47:42.020 --> 00:47:44.140
OK, bye.

00:47:44.140 --> 00:47:45.390
Yes.

00:47:48.460 --> 00:47:49.200
Awesome.

00:47:49.200 --> 00:47:50.550
All right, this is great.

00:47:50.550 --> 00:47:51.360
I'm off the system.

00:47:51.360 --> 00:47:55.580
I am off house arrest,
technically, right now.

00:47:55.580 --> 00:47:57.030
Hey.

00:47:57.030 --> 00:47:59.840
I'm off.

00:47:59.840 --> 00:48:00.766
Sweet.

00:48:00.766 --> 00:48:02.960
Seven months and two days.

00:48:02.960 --> 00:48:05.740
With seven months of good
behavior, Daniel's lawyers

00:48:05.740 --> 00:48:08.970
have convinced the government
that he's not a flight risk.

00:48:08.970 --> 00:48:10.210
What do you think about that?

00:48:10.210 --> 00:48:13.072
I kind of want to
stay in tonight.

00:48:13.072 --> 00:48:14.770
(LAUGHING) No, I'm joking.

00:48:14.770 --> 00:48:15.750
Are you kidding me?

00:48:15.750 --> 00:48:16.960
I don't care how tired I am.

00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:18.210
We're doing something.

00:48:32.680 --> 00:48:35.100
Of course I'm going to get off
house arrest on this day.

00:48:35.100 --> 00:48:37.514
Like of all days, it'll
be today, you know?

00:48:40.360 --> 00:48:43.490
It's really sad for me to have
all these feelings about my

00:48:43.490 --> 00:48:48.830
home being attacked, like
my city being attacked.

00:48:48.830 --> 00:48:51.140
I mean, when I tell people that
I'm accused of being a

00:48:51.140 --> 00:48:54.540
terrorist, whether it's eco or
domestic in front of it, or

00:48:54.540 --> 00:48:56.990
it's just straight terrorist,
it's ludicrous to me.

00:48:56.990 --> 00:48:58.300
It's, like, surreal.

00:48:58.300 --> 00:49:01.780
And most people that know
me are like, what?

00:49:01.780 --> 00:49:05.270
No one's accused in my case of
flying planes, bombing things,

00:49:05.270 --> 00:49:07.430
trying to hurt people,
none of these things.

00:49:07.430 --> 00:49:08.550
No one's accused of that.

00:49:08.550 --> 00:49:09.830
It's property destruction.

00:49:09.830 --> 00:49:10.580
Like that's what it is.

00:49:10.580 --> 00:49:12.392
Call it what it is, you know?

00:49:12.392 --> 00:49:13.850
You're done.

00:49:13.850 --> 00:49:15.030
Yay.

00:49:15.030 --> 00:49:16.015
Look naked, right?

00:49:16.015 --> 00:49:16.490
You did it.

00:49:16.490 --> 00:49:17.120
How you doing?

00:49:17.120 --> 00:49:18.341
How you doing?

00:49:18.341 --> 00:49:20.540
Look at my freak-ass ankle.

00:49:20.540 --> 00:49:22.430
I actually ran a little bit,
because I wanted to feel like

00:49:22.430 --> 00:49:23.850
what it was like to run.

00:49:23.850 --> 00:49:25.720
I'm so tired.

00:49:25.720 --> 00:49:26.310
My feet hurt.

00:49:26.310 --> 00:49:27.360
My legs hurt.

00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:28.700
I just had a knee pain.

00:49:28.700 --> 00:49:29.950
It was horrible.

00:49:38.170 --> 00:49:42.350
As time went on, the cell
members had to become better

00:49:42.350 --> 00:49:45.840
and better and better at their
craft, and their craft was

00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:47.090
destruction.

00:49:49.710 --> 00:49:52.520
And so they started what was
called the book club.

00:49:55.150 --> 00:49:59.550
They would train one
another on how to

00:49:59.550 --> 00:50:00.955
build incendiary devices.

00:50:06.230 --> 00:50:09.900
And they would go out and test
all these things, so they knew

00:50:09.900 --> 00:50:11.110
how long it would take.

00:50:11.110 --> 00:50:14.040
You know, at this time at night
in this kind of weather,

00:50:14.040 --> 00:50:18.070
how long will it take for
this thing to ignite?

00:50:18.070 --> 00:50:19.750
What type of fuel would
work the best.

00:50:22.590 --> 00:50:24.500
They wouldn't buy all
the ingredients

00:50:24.500 --> 00:50:25.250
from the same store.

00:50:25.250 --> 00:50:28.630
Even if the same store had the
two or three items that they'd

00:50:28.630 --> 00:50:31.570
need, they would go to a
completely different store,

00:50:31.570 --> 00:50:36.570
30, 40 miles away, so that it
wouldn't ever be tracked.

00:50:36.570 --> 00:50:40.230
It was called a book club
because they also utilized

00:50:40.230 --> 00:50:42.120
certain codes.

00:50:42.120 --> 00:50:43.930
At the meeting they were
told, this is the

00:50:43.930 --> 00:50:45.520
book we'll be using.

00:50:45.520 --> 00:50:48.160
And then you'd have
to use your book.

00:50:48.160 --> 00:50:52.330
That would associate what page
number, what line number, what

00:50:52.330 --> 00:50:55.340
word number, and that's how you
would decode the message

00:50:55.340 --> 00:50:56.290
to tell you where to go.

00:50:56.290 --> 00:50:58.740
And some of the members of
the book club, then, were

00:50:58.740 --> 00:51:01.620
well-versed in computer
sciences.

00:51:01.620 --> 00:51:04.600
And they brought in PGP
encryption and showed the

00:51:04.600 --> 00:51:05.950
other members how to do that.

00:51:05.950 --> 00:51:08.760
There was a lot of, like, having
good covers for why

00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:11.370
you're leaving town, why
you're not leaving--

00:51:11.370 --> 00:51:14.400
where you're going, having
really good stories that made

00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:16.850
sense, that were consistent,
that you told everyone--

00:51:16.850 --> 00:51:19.230
your job, your family,
everything.

00:51:19.230 --> 00:51:22.970
Not dressing like activists,
per se.

00:51:22.970 --> 00:51:25.050
We didn't really look like
what you'd think

00:51:25.050 --> 00:51:25.810
we would look like.

00:51:25.810 --> 00:51:27.550
I mean, if you saw people
walking down the street, you

00:51:27.550 --> 00:51:30.040
would never think,
that's the ELF.

00:51:30.040 --> 00:51:33.120
It made a lot of sense of why
there wasn't any evidence, why

00:51:33.120 --> 00:51:35.020
they weren't caught sooner.

00:51:35.020 --> 00:51:38.360
They were really good
at what they did.

00:51:41.570 --> 00:51:45.990
In May of 2001, members of the
ELF launched an attack against

00:51:45.990 --> 00:51:50.300
two sites at once, a first
for the organization.

00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:52.570
The first target was an office
at the University of

00:51:52.570 --> 00:51:56.040
Washington where a scientist was
doing genetic research on

00:51:56.040 --> 00:52:00.220
trees with a grant from
the timber industry.

00:52:00.220 --> 00:52:03.200
The second target was the
Jefferson Poplar Tree Farm,

00:52:03.200 --> 00:52:05.760
where the group believed that
genetically-engineered trees

00:52:05.760 --> 00:52:09.380
were being developed for
paper production.

00:52:09.380 --> 00:52:12.950
In the previous arson, Daniel
had been a lookout, but this

00:52:12.950 --> 00:52:15.970
time he took a much
more active role.

00:52:15.970 --> 00:52:17.800
They rented a motel room.

00:52:17.800 --> 00:52:20.580
They set up a tent inside
the motel room.

00:52:20.580 --> 00:52:23.785
They put on painter's suits,
triple-thick gloves.

00:52:23.785 --> 00:52:25.780
They made the devices.

00:52:25.780 --> 00:52:28.550
One team went to the University
of Washington, and

00:52:28.550 --> 00:52:32.670
the other team traveled down
to Clatskanie in Oregon to

00:52:32.670 --> 00:52:33.920
Jefferson Poplar Farms.

00:52:33.920 --> 00:52:35.940
Clatskanie's a really
small town.

00:52:35.940 --> 00:52:39.090
We were just really trying to
avoid a traffic stop, because

00:52:39.090 --> 00:52:40.970
it's just like, we
were pretty much

00:52:40.970 --> 00:52:42.300
screwed if we got stopped.

00:52:42.300 --> 00:52:44.890
There's way too many people in
the car dressed in all black.

00:52:44.890 --> 00:52:48.810
The driver of the vehicle
was Ms. Savoie.

00:52:48.810 --> 00:52:51.070
Ms. Zacher served
as a lookout.

00:52:51.070 --> 00:52:54.530
And then the three men, which
was Mr. Meyerhoff, Mr.

00:52:54.530 --> 00:52:59.680
McGowan, and Mr. Block, took the
fuel loads and the timers

00:52:59.680 --> 00:53:01.560
to the targets.

00:53:01.560 --> 00:53:02.880
We checked that no
one's there.

00:53:02.880 --> 00:53:05.060
Like climb around, look around,
no one's in there.

00:53:05.060 --> 00:53:05.990
We'd been there previous.

00:53:05.990 --> 00:53:06.570
No one's there.

00:53:06.570 --> 00:53:09.040
The cleaning lady's there
much earlier.

00:53:09.040 --> 00:53:12.260
We set up all the devices
and all the buckets.

00:53:12.260 --> 00:53:17.910
They put little tubs full of
fuel underneath the vehicles,

00:53:17.910 --> 00:53:20.990
and they put soaked rags, and
they'd run the rags from

00:53:20.990 --> 00:53:22.580
vehicle to vehicle to vehicle.

00:53:22.580 --> 00:53:25.647
And the towel just goes and goes
and goes and it goes, and

00:53:25.647 --> 00:53:28.560
it's tied together in sheets,
and it's just-- it's an

00:53:28.560 --> 00:53:28.790
absolute mess.

00:53:28.790 --> 00:53:33.330
They were careful to take the
trucks with the fuel tanks,

00:53:33.330 --> 00:53:36.540
fill the beds of the
vehicles with fuel.

00:53:36.540 --> 00:53:37.470
I'm standing there.

00:53:37.470 --> 00:53:39.670
I'm drenched in gasoline.

00:53:39.670 --> 00:53:42.550
We're about to burn
13 huge SUVs.

00:53:42.550 --> 00:53:46.070
And I was just like,
what am I doing?

00:53:46.070 --> 00:53:48.720
But we take spray paint, myself
and another person go

00:53:48.720 --> 00:53:52.190
out to the shed, and I
write ELF on one side

00:53:52.190 --> 00:53:53.290
in pretty huge letters.

00:53:53.290 --> 00:53:55.860
And the other person writes,
"You cannot control what is

00:53:55.860 --> 00:54:02.270
wild!"

00:54:02.270 --> 00:54:10.150
There's the E, L, and F.
Everything was basically fully

00:54:10.150 --> 00:54:11.840
engulfed when I got here.

00:54:11.840 --> 00:54:15.540
With all the vehicles and the
fuel tanks and so forth, there

00:54:15.540 --> 00:54:21.510
was lots of propellant in the
area to make things burn, and

00:54:21.510 --> 00:54:22.890
things went up fast and hot.

00:54:22.890 --> 00:54:24.850
[SIRENS]

00:54:24.850 --> 00:54:26.320
9-1-1, what is your emergency?

00:54:26.320 --> 00:54:28.770
Ma'am, we got a big fire
over here [INAUDIBLE].

00:54:33.180 --> 00:54:36.890
Investigators in the Pacific
Northwest strongly suspect

00:54:36.890 --> 00:54:40.740
that two nearly simultaneous
fires were acts

00:54:40.740 --> 00:54:43.542
of ecological terror.

00:54:43.542 --> 00:54:47.620
Monday morning, May 24, I got
back to Eugene and I was just

00:54:47.620 --> 00:54:51.580
like, wow, I really need to
think about what I just did.

00:54:51.580 --> 00:54:56.320
Just seeing absolute ruins, and
realizing that, like, all

00:54:56.320 --> 00:54:59.540
people were going to focus on
was the fact that things were

00:54:59.540 --> 00:55:01.670
destroyed, and that the
issues are being lost.

00:55:01.670 --> 00:55:03.270
And all they care about
is catching the

00:55:03.270 --> 00:55:05.980
people that did it.

00:55:05.980 --> 00:55:07.560
They were talking about
Jefferson Poplar, and then

00:55:07.560 --> 00:55:09.530
they were talking about
University of Washington.

00:55:09.530 --> 00:55:10.990
So finding out what it
eventually happened at

00:55:10.990 --> 00:55:13.640
University of Washington,
the massive

00:55:13.640 --> 00:55:15.590
destruction to a library--

00:55:15.590 --> 00:55:17.847
not just the professor's office
that was involved in

00:55:17.847 --> 00:55:21.160
this sort of research, but the
Center for Urban Horticulture.

00:55:21.160 --> 00:55:24.130
I was like, this is too much,
too fast, too big.

00:55:24.130 --> 00:55:25.790
What am I doing?

00:55:25.790 --> 00:55:28.280
Not only had the fire at the
University of Washington

00:55:28.280 --> 00:55:31.220
gotten out of control, they
also discovered that the

00:55:31.220 --> 00:55:35.900
Jefferson Poplar arson was based
on faulty information.

00:55:35.900 --> 00:55:38.110
It turned out that while the
previous owners of the

00:55:38.110 --> 00:55:41.550
property had been involved with
genetic engineering, the

00:55:41.550 --> 00:55:45.050
new owners only had hybrid
trees, developed using farming

00:55:45.050 --> 00:55:48.070
methods that have been around
for hundreds of years.

00:55:48.070 --> 00:55:52.110
It's hard to really justify
it, in hindsight.

00:55:52.110 --> 00:55:54.970
Nobody would've targeted that
facility had we known that

00:55:54.970 --> 00:55:56.760
there was no genetic engineering
going on

00:55:56.760 --> 00:55:58.760
there at the time.

00:55:58.760 --> 00:56:00.890
So it left me with a really
bad taste in my mouth.

00:56:00.890 --> 00:56:04.850
Kind of like, wow, look at this
huge, intense action, and

00:56:04.850 --> 00:56:06.360
look what happened
in Washington.

00:56:06.360 --> 00:56:07.980
And like, am I really
ready for this?

00:56:07.980 --> 00:56:10.840
This is super serious
and super big.

00:56:10.840 --> 00:56:13.230
We went to the meeting a few
weeks afterwards, and I was

00:56:13.230 --> 00:56:15.420
like, this is too much.

00:56:15.420 --> 00:56:18.510
Some members of the group were
questioning the actions, but

00:56:18.510 --> 00:56:21.700
there were others who felt they
hadn't gone far enough.

00:56:21.700 --> 00:56:25.050
Some of them decided that they
wanted to target, basically,

00:56:25.050 --> 00:56:26.970
captains of industry.

00:56:26.970 --> 00:56:30.630
Target people now, not
just property.

00:56:30.630 --> 00:56:34.300
The last circle meeting
basically cleaved between

00:56:34.300 --> 00:56:37.870
people that seemingly wanted to
talk about it-- not even,

00:56:37.870 --> 00:56:39.270
like, plan it, but they
were like, we

00:56:39.270 --> 00:56:40.490
should talk about it--

00:56:40.490 --> 00:56:42.500
and the people that were
repulsed by it.

00:56:42.500 --> 00:56:45.395
And really, that ideological
divide was what ended it.

00:56:45.395 --> 00:56:47.470
That was it.

00:56:47.470 --> 00:56:50.070
What people were discussing
with my experiences of the

00:56:50.070 --> 00:56:54.800
arson, it made my mind
kind of spin.

00:56:54.800 --> 00:56:56.970
It's things like this that
led me to think,

00:56:56.970 --> 00:56:58.840
like, this is futile.

00:56:58.840 --> 00:57:01.270
There's got to be better ways of
addressing what's going on

00:57:01.270 --> 00:57:03.736
in the world than just
burning things down.

00:57:03.736 --> 00:57:06.780
As the ELF cell was dissolving,
the larger

00:57:06.780 --> 00:57:10.610
activist community in Eugene
was splintering as well.

00:57:10.610 --> 00:57:12.720
I think people were
self-righteous.

00:57:12.720 --> 00:57:15.190
I think people thought they
knew they had the answer.

00:57:15.190 --> 00:57:18.090
Weren't willing to listen to
other points of view, because

00:57:18.090 --> 00:57:20.890
their view was more radical
than that point of view.

00:57:20.890 --> 00:57:25.350
All those things came into play,
I think, to help narrow

00:57:25.350 --> 00:57:29.050
the amount of people that were
connected within the movement,

00:57:29.050 --> 00:57:31.550
to the point where it
just went, poof.

00:57:31.550 --> 00:57:33.080
Doesn't exist anymore.

00:57:33.080 --> 00:57:37.880
That's one really sad thing
about a lot of social

00:57:37.880 --> 00:57:40.600
movements, but I think
ours especially.

00:57:40.600 --> 00:57:46.010
Because we all are so critical
of the world and of the way

00:57:46.010 --> 00:57:48.770
people live in the world and
how they interact with the

00:57:48.770 --> 00:57:51.770
natural world, that we sometimes
are extremely

00:57:51.770 --> 00:57:53.090
critical on each other.

00:57:53.090 --> 00:57:58.220
And that is definitely part of
our downfall as a movement.

00:57:58.220 --> 00:58:02.226
The scene was really imploding
there at the time.

00:58:02.226 --> 00:58:03.870
And I took a small trip
to New York for my

00:58:03.870 --> 00:58:06.960
sister's 35th birthday.

00:58:06.960 --> 00:58:09.310
And I hung out with my family
and I was like, wow, I really

00:58:09.310 --> 00:58:09.900
love my family.

00:58:09.900 --> 00:58:11.340
I forgot that I--

00:58:11.340 --> 00:58:14.640
like I just grew so disconnected
from them.

00:58:14.640 --> 00:58:18.270
And I met Jenny, and I was like,
all right, I think I'm

00:58:18.270 --> 00:58:20.630
going to move back
to New York.

00:58:20.630 --> 00:58:23.340
After moving home, Daniel
began working at The

00:58:23.340 --> 00:58:25.176
Rainforest Foundation.

00:58:25.176 --> 00:58:28.840
He organized protests against
the Republican Convention.

00:58:28.840 --> 00:58:31.600
And finally, he took a job
at a domestic violence

00:58:31.600 --> 00:58:34.330
organization, where he was
working when he was arrested.

00:58:37.690 --> 00:58:45.370
[TRAIN CROSSING BELL RINGING]

00:58:45.370 --> 00:58:48.470
The ELF fires in the Northwest
had stopped, but the

00:58:48.470 --> 00:58:51.660
government continued to
work on the case.

00:58:51.660 --> 00:58:53.460
We had a war room, basically.

00:58:53.460 --> 00:58:55.850
It was a situation room, and we
worked it, and worked it,

00:58:55.850 --> 00:58:56.650
and worked it.

00:58:56.650 --> 00:58:58.600
We had diagrams all
over the walls.

00:58:58.600 --> 00:59:00.920
We had our flow charts and we
had our pictures of all our

00:59:00.920 --> 00:59:02.830
target suspects up there.

00:59:02.830 --> 00:59:04.260
What's different on TV--

00:59:04.260 --> 00:59:06.550
that's not realistic--

00:59:06.550 --> 00:59:09.230
is that everything's solved
in 50 minutes.

00:59:09.230 --> 00:59:12.050
And that's not what
happens here.

00:59:12.050 --> 00:59:14.850
Three years after Daniel moved
back to New York, the

00:59:14.850 --> 00:59:17.390
government had still turned
up no viable suspects.

00:59:17.390 --> 00:59:21.250
We came together and decided
that we would take a cold case

00:59:21.250 --> 00:59:26.700
approach on one arson to see if
we could turn any suspects

00:59:26.700 --> 00:59:28.650
in that particular arson.

00:59:28.650 --> 00:59:31.160
And the arson we chose was one
that occurred in the city of

00:59:31.160 --> 00:59:34.750
Eugene, and it was the Joe
Romania Truck Center arson,

00:59:34.750 --> 00:59:37.822
wherein which 35 SUVs were
burned to the ground.

00:59:37.822 --> 00:59:46.010
[SUSTAINED HORNS HONKING]

00:59:46.010 --> 00:59:49.010
The new investigation yielded
a number of clues which

00:59:49.010 --> 00:59:51.860
pointed the government toward
one local activist.

00:59:51.860 --> 00:59:55.520
The night of Romania, Jake
Ferguson was accused of

00:59:55.520 --> 00:59:58.830
stealing a truck, which was
kind of interesting.

00:59:58.830 --> 01:00:01.110
You know, a truck would
be needed for

01:00:01.110 --> 01:00:03.400
something like what occurred.

01:00:03.400 --> 01:00:07.640
We also knew that Josephine
Overaker was arrested in the

01:00:07.640 --> 01:00:12.400
Olympia area just prior to an
arson that occurred up there.

01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:15.170
And we knew that her boyfriend
was Jacob Ferguson.

01:00:15.170 --> 01:00:17.890
And that's when we really
turned the heat up.

01:00:17.890 --> 01:00:20.810
With Jake now on their radar,
they began following him

01:00:20.810 --> 01:00:23.880
everywhere, asking people about
him and bringing his

01:00:23.880 --> 01:00:28.200
friends in for questioning
before grand juries.

01:00:28.200 --> 01:00:32.780
You know, you start seeing cars
following you, and cars

01:00:32.780 --> 01:00:36.946
with guys sitting outside
where you're staying.

01:00:36.946 --> 01:00:41.460
And it was really scary, you
know, to think that they were

01:00:41.460 --> 01:00:44.910
kind of on the right track, and
that they're just kind of

01:00:44.910 --> 01:00:46.990
right there behind you.

01:00:46.990 --> 01:00:52.170
And he's also a drug user, and
so that adds the paranoia.

01:00:52.170 --> 01:00:53.620
They know.

01:00:53.620 --> 01:00:54.660
They're coming for me.

01:00:54.660 --> 01:00:58.190
And of course, in Jake's case,
some of it was true, where

01:00:58.190 --> 01:01:00.590
when he did turn around,
their were law

01:01:00.590 --> 01:01:02.370
enforcement following him.

01:01:02.370 --> 01:01:05.230
So lightning was striking
all around him.

01:01:05.230 --> 01:01:09.880
And with that in mind,
we gave him an out.

01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:12.970
We called him into the United
States Attorney's Office.

01:01:12.970 --> 01:01:15.470
We were in a conference
room there.

01:01:15.470 --> 01:01:19.230
And then we explained to him
quite simply that we knew what

01:01:19.230 --> 01:01:21.400
his situation was.

01:01:21.400 --> 01:01:24.120
They told him they knew he was
a heroin addict and that he'd

01:01:24.120 --> 01:01:27.200
lied to an investigator,
which was a felony.

01:01:27.200 --> 01:01:30.070
And then they bluffed.

01:01:30.070 --> 01:01:32.540
Despite a lack of hard evidence,
they led him to

01:01:32.540 --> 01:01:35.460
believe that they could tie
him to the ELF arsons.

01:01:35.460 --> 01:01:38.390
We never told Jake Ferguson or
his lawyer what we knew or

01:01:38.390 --> 01:01:39.410
didn't know.

01:01:39.410 --> 01:01:40.580
You never do that.

01:01:40.580 --> 01:01:43.400
Could we have really put him
away for a long time?

01:01:43.400 --> 01:01:45.860
At that point, probably not.

01:01:45.860 --> 01:01:48.770
They told him that the arsons
carried a life sentence, but

01:01:48.770 --> 01:01:51.410
if he became an informant,
they'd let him walk away from

01:01:51.410 --> 01:01:52.520
his crimes.

01:01:52.520 --> 01:01:57.050
I described to him, tried to
paint an image of him walking

01:01:57.050 --> 01:02:02.110
through the forest on a road,
some sunny summer afternoon,

01:02:02.110 --> 01:02:06.280
hand in hand with his son,
instead of looking at his son

01:02:06.280 --> 01:02:08.570
through bulletproof glass.

01:02:08.570 --> 01:02:11.600
And he thought about it.

01:02:11.600 --> 01:02:16.010
And at that particular point
in time, then he and his

01:02:16.010 --> 01:02:18.590
lawyer excused themselves and
left, and said, well, we'll

01:02:18.590 --> 01:02:20.360
get back to you in
a day or so.

01:02:20.360 --> 01:02:24.300
You know, he grew up with his
dad in prison, and he saw how

01:02:24.300 --> 01:02:26.440
bad that life was.

01:02:26.440 --> 01:02:30.470
He didn't want to spend the rest
of his life in prison and

01:02:30.470 --> 01:02:34.430
have his son never
see his dad.

01:02:34.430 --> 01:02:38.230
20 minutes later, I get a call
from downstairs, and Mr.

01:02:38.230 --> 01:02:40.830
Ferguson and his lawyer want
to come up and talk to us.

01:02:40.830 --> 01:02:44.480
And so they came up and they
said, we would like to

01:02:44.480 --> 01:02:46.280
consider cooperation.

01:02:46.280 --> 01:02:49.000
What do we need to do?

01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:51.110
So that was-- when we found
out that he was willing to

01:02:51.110 --> 01:02:54.830
cooperate, that was one the
best days I've ever had.

01:02:54.830 --> 01:02:58.400
So he started listing off all
the things that he had

01:02:58.400 --> 01:03:01.940
information about, and that
basically was every arson in

01:03:01.940 --> 01:03:06.030
the District of Oregon, arsons
in Washington state, arsons in

01:03:06.030 --> 01:03:09.360
Wyoming, arsons in Colorado,
California.

01:03:09.360 --> 01:03:13.920
We did not know the scope of
what he had knowledge of.

01:03:13.920 --> 01:03:16.280
So that's when the investigation
really kind of

01:03:16.280 --> 01:03:17.740
broke open.

01:03:17.740 --> 01:03:24.740
The team immediately grew from
12 or 13 to 40, to 300 agents.

01:03:24.740 --> 01:03:27.710
After debriefing Jake about
the 14 fires he'd been

01:03:27.710 --> 01:03:31.070
involved in, the government
had a problem.

01:03:31.070 --> 01:03:34.140
They knew that a heroin addict
with a pentagram tattoo on his

01:03:34.140 --> 01:03:37.450
head would not make a persuasive
witness in court,

01:03:37.450 --> 01:03:40.350
and so they needed corroborating
evidence.

01:03:40.350 --> 01:03:44.210
We talked to him and his lawyer,
and we said, OK, this

01:03:44.210 --> 01:03:45.020
is what we want you to do.

01:03:45.020 --> 01:03:47.200
We want you to wear a wire.

01:03:47.200 --> 01:03:50.660
They hid a recording device in
the liner of his baseball cap,

01:03:50.660 --> 01:03:53.200
and over the course of the year,
they flew him all over

01:03:53.200 --> 01:03:56.160
the country, where they arranged
for him accidentally

01:03:56.160 --> 01:03:59.420
bump into his old friends and
get them to reminisce about

01:03:59.420 --> 01:04:00.490
the old days.

01:04:00.490 --> 01:04:04.010
He walked into a animal rights
conference I was at in

01:04:04.010 --> 01:04:07.600
Washington Heights of
Holyrood Church.

01:04:07.600 --> 01:04:09.150
It was bizarre to see him.

01:04:09.150 --> 01:04:13.740
I mean, he was bloated and kind
of fat, and just looked

01:04:13.740 --> 01:04:14.630
really different.

01:04:14.630 --> 01:04:16.930
He was talkative, which was
weird. 'Cause I always

01:04:16.930 --> 01:04:18.420
remembered him as
a really quiet

01:04:18.420 --> 01:04:19.670
guy, but he was talkative.

01:04:23.106 --> 01:04:24.370
Let's go left.

01:04:24.370 --> 01:04:25.790
We can kick it at a park bench.

01:04:25.790 --> 01:04:27.280
Sure.

01:04:27.280 --> 01:04:28.860
I went to go get a coffee
with him, and we

01:04:28.860 --> 01:04:29.790
just talked a bunch.

01:04:29.790 --> 01:04:32.240
And yeah, it was unfortunate.

01:04:32.240 --> 01:04:34.690
There is a reward out
for all of us.

01:04:34.690 --> 01:04:35.670
How much?

01:04:35.670 --> 01:04:38.120
Lots?

01:04:38.120 --> 01:04:41.040
I'm pretty firmly convinced that
if there were ever any

01:04:41.040 --> 01:04:44.770
hair or fingerprints, it
already woulda hit.

01:04:44.770 --> 01:04:45.886
Right.

01:04:45.886 --> 01:04:49.660
I mean it's been four years
on most of this shit.

01:04:49.660 --> 01:04:52.564
As long as people never try
to rat each other out,

01:04:52.564 --> 01:04:55.480
then it'll be fine.

01:04:55.480 --> 01:04:58.010
I mean, thinking about it, I
can't help but be annoyed at

01:04:58.010 --> 01:05:00.255
myself for being like, how did
you not know something was

01:05:00.255 --> 01:05:01.744
really wrong here?

01:05:01.744 --> 01:05:05.720
Here's the deal-- if anything
ever does go wrong, it'll be a

01:05:05.720 --> 01:05:07.762
big domino.

01:05:07.762 --> 01:05:11.234
And frankly, the only way I
think anything could go wrong

01:05:11.234 --> 01:05:16.200
is someone decides that they
want to repent for their sins,

01:05:16.200 --> 01:05:18.330
or they lose their mind and
they want to get money.

01:05:18.330 --> 01:05:19.284
Money, huh?

01:05:19.284 --> 01:05:20.238
Well, come on.

01:05:20.238 --> 01:05:22.146
It's not worth it, man.

01:05:22.146 --> 01:05:24.054
That's some Judas shit, man.

01:05:26.930 --> 01:05:30.243
It was rather foolish, you
know, to have done that.

01:05:30.243 --> 01:05:34.210
But I'm trying to get over the
shame associated with making

01:05:34.210 --> 01:05:36.420
dumb mistakes.

01:05:36.420 --> 01:05:38.280
Jake was extremely conflicted.

01:05:38.280 --> 01:05:39.280
We had to pump him up.

01:05:39.280 --> 01:05:42.800
It was like before a big fight,
where we sat there with

01:05:42.800 --> 01:05:47.500
him for probably half an hour
to an hour, just to get him

01:05:47.500 --> 01:05:52.720
kind of tuned up and
ready to do it.

01:05:52.720 --> 01:05:58.110
It wasn't something I felt good
about, you know, getting

01:05:58.110 --> 01:06:01.640
people to confess by
wearing a wire.

01:06:01.640 --> 01:06:04.310
But what can you do when you've
already taken the deal,

01:06:04.310 --> 01:06:07.950
and then you've admitted to
doing all these felonies?

01:06:07.950 --> 01:06:09.060
They've got you.

01:06:09.060 --> 01:06:12.210
You know, if you do anything to
disagree with the deal, the

01:06:12.210 --> 01:06:15.060
deal's off, and you've
just confessed to,

01:06:15.060 --> 01:06:18.590
like, life in prison.

01:06:18.590 --> 01:06:22.600
So once we had those recordings
in place, we

01:06:22.600 --> 01:06:26.500
decided on a particular
take-down date.

01:06:26.500 --> 01:06:30.390
The take-down presented an
enormous logistical challenge.

01:06:30.390 --> 01:06:32.600
The government believed that
the suspects had to be

01:06:32.600 --> 01:06:36.130
arrested at exactly the same
moment, or word would get out

01:06:36.130 --> 01:06:38.120
and they would go into hiding.

01:06:38.120 --> 01:06:42.630
So teams of federal agents
fanned out across the country.

01:06:42.630 --> 01:06:45.810
I went to New York, and we
stayed out on Daniel McGowan's

01:06:45.810 --> 01:06:47.300
house until--

01:06:47.300 --> 01:06:51.710
I think it was 10:00 or 11:00,
making sure that he was going

01:06:51.710 --> 01:06:53.070
to be there first thing
in the morning.

01:06:53.070 --> 01:06:57.020
And then we got-- it was
not very good sleep.

01:06:57.020 --> 01:06:59.820
The next morning, Detective
Harvey and three federal

01:06:59.820 --> 01:07:03.030
agents followed Daniel
to work.

01:07:03.030 --> 01:07:05.520
I look up, and around
the corner comes

01:07:05.520 --> 01:07:07.800
this kind of big dudes.

01:07:07.800 --> 01:07:10.910
I just kept feeling wave after
wave of dread and fear, just

01:07:10.910 --> 01:07:11.746
kept-- you know.

01:07:11.746 --> 01:07:13.610
And I was like, I could
barely talk.

01:07:13.610 --> 01:07:15.900
I just completely
lost my voice.

01:07:15.900 --> 01:07:17.770
Like I was just-- could
barely move.

01:07:17.770 --> 01:07:19.520
It was really horrible.

01:07:19.520 --> 01:07:21.510
And they're like, you're
being extradited to

01:07:21.510 --> 01:07:24.280
Oregon for ELF charges.

01:07:24.280 --> 01:07:25.700
You should consider plea-ing.

01:07:25.700 --> 01:07:28.530
Don't ruin your family,
like all this stuff.

01:07:28.530 --> 01:07:30.165
We would have them
have an attorney.

01:07:30.165 --> 01:07:33.360
We would present the evidence
that we have against them and

01:07:33.360 --> 01:07:38.220
say, here's your opportunity
to become a cooperator or

01:07:38.220 --> 01:07:39.440
remain a defendant.

01:07:39.440 --> 01:07:40.190
Your choice.

01:07:40.190 --> 01:07:43.430
You know, when you sit down with
them and you show them

01:07:43.430 --> 01:07:47.210
and let them listen to
themselves on tape, you see

01:07:47.210 --> 01:07:48.590
them really sink.

01:07:48.590 --> 01:07:51.850
Oh, OK, I'm done.

01:07:51.850 --> 01:07:56.460
It was a very successful
approach, because the dominoes

01:07:56.460 --> 01:07:58.000
began to fall.

01:07:58.000 --> 01:07:59.400
I was in bed.

01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:04.150
My husband was up for work.

01:08:04.150 --> 01:08:07.530
It was 5:00 in the morning.

01:08:07.530 --> 01:08:08.870
He gets up early for work.

01:08:08.870 --> 01:08:13.330
And he came into the bedroom and
told me that the FBI and

01:08:13.330 --> 01:08:16.279
the Oregon State Police were
there to talk to me.

01:08:16.279 --> 01:08:19.260
And right away, I pretty much
knew what they were there to

01:08:19.260 --> 01:08:20.510
talk to me about.

01:08:22.810 --> 01:08:27.550
From there, it was just the
hardest decision I've ever

01:08:27.550 --> 01:08:30.490
made in my life, whether or
not I should take a plea

01:08:30.490 --> 01:08:33.990
bargain and cooperate or risk
going to prison for the rest

01:08:33.990 --> 01:08:34.790
of my life.

01:08:34.790 --> 01:08:37.090
And I think that probably will
be the hardest decision I've

01:08:37.090 --> 01:08:39.109
ever made in my life.

01:08:39.109 --> 01:08:45.710
And I chose to cooperate and
take the plea bargain so that

01:08:45.710 --> 01:08:49.200
I could someday once again
be with my loved ones.

01:08:52.580 --> 01:08:56.920
I would have been fully prepared
to have gone away for

01:08:56.920 --> 01:08:58.130
five to ten years.

01:08:58.130 --> 01:09:02.069
It was really looking at dying
alone in prison, and knowing

01:09:02.069 --> 01:09:04.569
that every single loved one
would have moved on and done

01:09:04.569 --> 01:09:07.240
something else in their lives.

01:09:07.240 --> 01:09:10.809
It felt like a death sentence
more than a life sentence.

01:09:14.319 --> 01:09:18.000
People can judge me for the
decisions I've made, but until

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:21.330
you've been in that
position, it's--

01:09:21.330 --> 01:09:22.770
it's really hard to
know what you do.

01:09:22.770 --> 01:09:25.899
I never in my life thought
I would be

01:09:25.899 --> 01:09:27.479
cooperating with the FBI.

01:09:27.479 --> 01:09:30.520
I always thought that I would
be able to stay strong and

01:09:30.520 --> 01:09:32.410
stay true to my values
and my beliefs.

01:09:32.410 --> 01:09:36.899
And I guess sometimes you aren't
as strong as you think.

01:09:47.220 --> 01:09:50.630
So I don't know if you're
on, but can we talk

01:09:50.630 --> 01:09:53.779
off-camera for a sec?

01:09:53.779 --> 01:09:57.380
Daniel's lawyers have negotiated
a plea bargain.

01:09:57.380 --> 01:09:59.260
While most of his co-defendants
have agreed to

01:09:59.260 --> 01:10:02.730
testify against each other,
Daniel and three others have

01:10:02.730 --> 01:10:05.350
held out for different terms.

01:10:05.350 --> 01:10:08.000
They'll have to take
responsibility for the arsons

01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:11.450
but will not be forced to give
information about others if

01:10:11.450 --> 01:10:12.700
they accept the deal.

01:10:33.355 --> 01:10:33.790
Wow.

01:10:33.790 --> 01:10:34.500
You are a big girl.

01:10:34.500 --> 01:10:37.160
Happy birthday.

01:10:37.160 --> 01:10:39.710
Everything has this
overshadowing, this is the

01:10:39.710 --> 01:10:43.186
last of holidays, this is the
last birthday party, this is

01:10:43.186 --> 01:10:45.050
the last everything.

01:10:45.050 --> 01:10:47.883
It's funny-- he's not really a
big materialistic person, but

01:10:47.883 --> 01:10:49.160
he bought her a lot of
gifts this year.

01:10:49.160 --> 01:10:50.470
And I said to him, you
didn't have to

01:10:50.470 --> 01:10:51.100
go to all this trouble.

01:10:51.100 --> 01:10:55.140
And he said, this might be the
last time I can really ever

01:10:55.140 --> 01:10:56.470
give her gifts and be her.

01:10:56.470 --> 01:10:59.680
So that was kind of sad.

01:10:59.680 --> 01:11:00.270
I don't know.

01:11:00.270 --> 01:11:02.690
He's got some serious
decisions to make.

01:11:02.690 --> 01:11:04.040
And they suck.

01:11:04.040 --> 01:11:05.690
No matter what you choose,
they suck.

01:11:09.482 --> 01:11:11.378
Whoa!

01:11:11.378 --> 01:11:13.750
Wow.

01:11:13.750 --> 01:11:18.630
I just feel bad that this came
up in this part of his life.

01:11:21.270 --> 01:11:25.090
Hoping for him to make
an agreement.

01:11:25.090 --> 01:11:26.960
Was going to trial.

01:11:26.960 --> 01:11:31.920
I think with the charges
against him,

01:11:31.920 --> 01:11:33.170
that's two life sentences.

01:11:35.640 --> 01:11:41.270
I don't believe in his
philosophies, but he's my son,

01:11:41.270 --> 01:11:42.520
and I love him.

01:11:52.380 --> 01:11:53.630
[INAUDIBLE]

01:12:02.250 --> 01:12:05.434
So cool, I-- thanks, everyone
for coming.

01:12:05.434 --> 01:12:07.330
Dad, you want to take a seat?

01:12:07.330 --> 01:12:08.752
[INAUDIBLE]

01:12:08.752 --> 01:12:10.648
Or you want to pace behind?

01:12:10.648 --> 01:12:13.020
He wants to pace behind us.

01:12:13.020 --> 01:12:15.770
I just wanted everyone to come
so I can tell you guys I made

01:12:15.770 --> 01:12:20.440
my final decision on the plea
bargain the government offered

01:12:20.440 --> 01:12:21.950
a few weeks ago.

01:12:21.950 --> 01:12:27.190
And so I'm going to be agreeing
to this plea bargain

01:12:27.190 --> 01:12:28.440
in court on the 9th.

01:12:31.020 --> 01:12:35.740
So the recommended sentence on
the part of the government is

01:12:35.740 --> 01:12:36.830
eight years.

01:12:36.830 --> 01:12:38.640
I won't be taken into custody
at sentencing.

01:12:38.640 --> 01:12:42.420
I'm going to qualify
for a self-report.

01:12:42.420 --> 01:12:45.240
But it's a major, major,
important thing to them to say

01:12:45.240 --> 01:12:47.970
that our crime fit the federal
crime of terrorism.

01:12:50.840 --> 01:12:53.430
Even though Daniel has now
accepted a plea bargain, a

01:12:53.430 --> 01:12:55.680
hurdle still remains.

01:12:55.680 --> 01:12:58.720
A federal judge must determine
whether the fires qualify for

01:12:58.720 --> 01:13:02.610
something called the terrorism
enhancement.

01:13:02.610 --> 01:13:05.810
If the judge rules that Daniel's
fires were terrorism,

01:13:05.810 --> 01:13:09.230
Daniel could be sent to a new
ultra-restrictive prison that

01:13:09.230 --> 01:13:12.790
was set up after 9/11
to house terrorists.

01:13:12.790 --> 01:13:14.970
In the media and in
the courtroom,

01:13:14.970 --> 01:13:16.590
the question is debated.

01:13:16.590 --> 01:13:17.860
Eco-terrorism.

01:13:17.860 --> 01:13:19.850
Terrorist attacks by
radical groups--

01:13:19.850 --> 01:13:21.060
Eco-terrorists.

01:13:21.060 --> 01:13:22.300
Eco-terrorism.

01:13:22.300 --> 01:13:24.050
Environmental terrorists.

01:13:24.050 --> 01:13:28.170
People need to question this
buzzword and how it's being

01:13:28.170 --> 01:13:31.300
used, and how it's just become
the new "Communist." It's

01:13:31.300 --> 01:13:32.822
become the new--

01:13:32.822 --> 01:13:33.980
it's the boogie man.

01:13:33.980 --> 01:13:34.830
It's a boogie-man word.

01:13:34.830 --> 01:13:37.670
It's like, whoever I really
disagree with is a terrorist.

01:13:37.670 --> 01:13:40.165
Some people have a problem with
calling this terrorism,

01:13:40.165 --> 01:13:44.020
but when you're basically making
a threat where people

01:13:44.020 --> 01:13:48.350
go home at night wondering if
they're going to be a target,

01:13:48.350 --> 01:13:50.920
that's what terrorism is.

01:13:50.920 --> 01:13:55.180
After the fire, for a long time,
you really looked over

01:13:55.180 --> 01:13:56.210
your shoulder.

01:13:56.210 --> 01:14:00.125
We put an alarm system in our
home and things like that,

01:14:00.125 --> 01:14:02.574
that before, we hadn't
thought about.

01:14:02.574 --> 01:14:06.870
You know, being a New Yorker,
experiencing such serious

01:14:06.870 --> 01:14:08.860
terrorism firsthand, it's like,
how are you going to

01:14:08.860 --> 01:14:15.110
call someone who sets fire to an
empty building a terrorist?

01:14:15.110 --> 01:14:18.365
It's just inappropriate in every
way, and it's an insult.

01:14:23.630 --> 01:14:27.520
The word terrorism, to me,
is about killing humans.

01:14:27.520 --> 01:14:31.189
It's about ending
innocent life.

01:14:31.189 --> 01:14:36.220
And that is the antithesis
of what these people did.

01:14:36.220 --> 01:14:40.990
Concern for life was a very
big part of the plan and

01:14:40.990 --> 01:14:44.620
implementation of these actions,
and is why no one was

01:14:44.620 --> 01:14:48.040
ever harmed or injured
in them.

01:14:48.040 --> 01:14:52.050
1,200 incidents are being
accredited to the ELF and ALF

01:14:52.050 --> 01:14:55.390
in this country, and not a
single injury or death.

01:14:55.390 --> 01:14:57.315
Those statistics don't
happen by accident.

01:15:00.030 --> 01:15:02.840
Terrorist acts, under the
definition in the law, can

01:15:02.840 --> 01:15:05.120
vary all over the board.

01:15:05.120 --> 01:15:08.470
There's no requirement for
purposes of terrorism that you

01:15:08.470 --> 01:15:11.450
physically endanger another
person's life.

01:15:11.450 --> 01:15:13.950
I mean, you don't have to be
Bonnie and Clyde to be a bank

01:15:13.950 --> 01:15:17.540
robber, and you don't have to be
al-Qaeda to be a terrorist.

01:15:17.540 --> 01:15:20.120
I don't think these people
are terrorists.

01:15:20.120 --> 01:15:25.160
I think the people and the
agencies and the industry that

01:15:25.160 --> 01:15:28.370
they're fighting are the
true terrorists.

01:15:28.370 --> 01:15:31.390
When you've got big timber
companies coming into the

01:15:31.390 --> 01:15:35.460
Northwest, clear-cutting
old-growth forests, big oil

01:15:35.460 --> 01:15:39.260
companies with their big oil
spills that cost billions and

01:15:39.260 --> 01:15:43.200
billions and billions of
dollars, you don't see the FBI

01:15:43.200 --> 01:15:45.660
raiding these executives' homes
or anything like that.

01:15:45.660 --> 01:15:48.930
They aren't being threatened
with life in prison.

01:15:48.930 --> 01:15:51.720
All they really do is just
pay a fine and move

01:15:51.720 --> 01:15:53.460
on to the next quarter.

01:15:53.460 --> 01:15:56.570
The old adage that one man's
terrorist is another man's

01:15:56.570 --> 01:15:59.220
freedom fighter is true.

01:15:59.220 --> 01:16:03.930
If you agree with their motives,
wow, they're a hero.

01:16:03.930 --> 01:16:05.150
They're not a terrorist
at all.

01:16:05.150 --> 01:16:06.660
If you disagree with
their motives,

01:16:06.660 --> 01:16:08.030
then they're a terrorist.

01:16:08.030 --> 01:16:09.620
That's tough.

01:16:09.620 --> 01:16:13.090
That's why it's a whole lot
cleaner to deal with crimes.

01:16:13.090 --> 01:16:14.480
Crime, non-crime.

01:16:14.480 --> 01:16:16.335
OK, I'm good with that.

01:16:16.335 --> 01:16:17.220
I can do that.

01:16:17.220 --> 01:16:17.800
Arson?

01:16:17.800 --> 01:16:19.145
Arson is a crime.

01:16:19.145 --> 01:16:21.530
Good, I can do that.

01:16:21.530 --> 01:16:23.090
Is it terrorism?

01:16:23.090 --> 01:16:24.340
We'll find out.

01:16:34.480 --> 01:16:37.390
You know, I ordered a book about
doing time in federal

01:16:37.390 --> 01:16:40.300
prison written by a lawyer who
did time, and I'm very getting

01:16:40.300 --> 01:16:41.570
very prepared for
the whole idea.

01:16:41.570 --> 01:16:45.080
But that doesn't necessarily
make it any easier.

01:16:45.080 --> 01:16:46.330
No.

01:16:50.070 --> 01:16:52.066
You know you're not
alone, even though

01:16:52.066 --> 01:16:53.360
you're in there by yourself.

01:16:53.360 --> 01:16:54.610
I know.

01:17:01.555 --> 01:17:04.060
Yeah.

01:17:04.060 --> 01:17:05.312
Just, I don't know.

01:17:05.312 --> 01:17:06.204
It sucks.

01:17:06.204 --> 01:17:07.890
Sometimes it's hard not to
just look at the whole

01:17:07.890 --> 01:17:10.660
situation and go, like,
what the fuck?

01:17:10.660 --> 01:17:12.337
How did this all happen,
you know?

01:17:17.590 --> 01:17:18.750
The situation with
the environment,

01:17:18.750 --> 01:17:20.110
it's not getting better.

01:17:20.110 --> 01:17:21.710
It's getting worse.

01:17:21.710 --> 01:17:23.770
I'm not suggesting that the
path of destruction and

01:17:23.770 --> 01:17:26.070
destroying everything is the
right path, but I didn't know

01:17:26.070 --> 01:17:26.950
what to do.

01:17:26.950 --> 01:17:28.430
It's like when you're screaming
at the top of your

01:17:28.430 --> 01:17:31.230
lungs and no one hears you, what
the hell are you supposed

01:17:31.230 --> 01:17:33.050
to say, you know?

01:17:33.050 --> 01:17:34.300
What are you supposed to do?

01:17:42.512 --> 01:17:44.000
Going to the courthouse?

01:18:25.260 --> 01:18:27.530
The judge has sentenced
Mr. McGowan to

01:18:27.530 --> 01:18:29.750
84 months in prison.

01:18:29.750 --> 01:18:31.380
That's seven years.

01:18:31.380 --> 01:18:34.760
The court also imposed a
terrorism enhancement.

01:18:34.760 --> 01:18:38.020
He's been branded as a terrorist
in the media.

01:18:38.020 --> 01:18:42.460
He will be listed as a
successful government terror

01:18:42.460 --> 01:18:46.120
prosecution for the rest of
his life, and we are very

01:18:46.120 --> 01:18:47.010
disappointed.

01:18:47.010 --> 01:18:49.610
We believe it's legally wrong
and factually wrong.

01:18:52.660 --> 01:18:54.050
I look at the trailhead,
right there.

01:19:19.150 --> 01:19:20.835
Oh my god, it fell from there.

01:19:27.895 --> 01:19:33.070
The older I get, the more
circumspect I become.

01:19:33.070 --> 01:19:40.360
And I know now that the world
is not black and white.

01:19:40.360 --> 01:19:42.760
It's not that simple.

01:19:42.760 --> 01:19:43.940
When you--

01:19:43.940 --> 01:19:50.270
when I first read about these
arsons and became involved in

01:19:50.270 --> 01:19:54.505
the investigation of the arsons,
you see all the damage

01:19:54.505 --> 01:19:56.580
and the harm that they've
done, and the

01:19:56.580 --> 01:19:57.490
threats they made.

01:19:57.490 --> 01:20:00.730
They're not very likable
people, at all.

01:20:00.730 --> 01:20:06.410
Once you get to know them as a
human being, you start looking

01:20:06.410 --> 01:20:09.980
at their motivations, because
you're curious about it.

01:20:09.980 --> 01:20:12.620
Why did they do such
a horrible thing?

01:20:12.620 --> 01:20:15.170
And you look at their
background, and you look at

01:20:15.170 --> 01:20:21.370
their childhood, and you look
at how they've evolved from

01:20:21.370 --> 01:20:25.352
the days when they committed
all these crimes.

01:20:25.352 --> 01:20:30.600
And then instead of just being
a cold mugshot on a piece of

01:20:30.600 --> 01:20:32.480
paper, they become
human beings.

01:20:32.480 --> 01:20:34.410
And so you begin to
understand them.

01:20:34.410 --> 01:20:36.840
And that's not that you're
saying you approve of their

01:20:36.840 --> 01:20:40.730
conduct or their behavior, but
you gain an understanding and

01:20:40.730 --> 01:20:44.780
insight as to how it came to
pass that they started doing

01:20:44.780 --> 01:20:46.030
these things.

01:20:48.690 --> 01:20:52.740
And then you're curious about
how their lives will end up.

01:20:52.740 --> 01:20:55.410
But only time will tell.

01:20:55.410 --> 01:20:57.686
My stomach is flipping out.

01:21:00.510 --> 01:21:00.925
[INAUDIBLE]?

01:21:00.925 --> 01:21:01.760
No, I got it.

01:21:01.760 --> 01:21:02.180
You sure?

01:21:02.180 --> 01:21:03.440
I gotta be independent.

01:21:03.440 --> 01:21:03.860
OK.

01:21:03.860 --> 01:21:06.406
You're not gonna be there to
advise me on this stuff.

01:21:22.840 --> 01:21:23.770
I'm in your corner.

01:21:23.770 --> 01:21:24.582
I know.

01:21:24.582 --> 01:21:25.832
Thanks, Pop.

01:21:29.800 --> 01:21:31.050
Thanks for everything.

01:21:33.280 --> 01:21:35.272
(TEARFULLY) I'll
see you later.

01:22:15.112 --> 01:22:16.362
I love you too.

01:22:56.944 --> 01:22:58.194
[MUSIC - THE NATIONAL,
"CHERRY TREE"]