ALF Crime Report

FUR COMMISSION USA PRESS RELEASE, APRIL 24, 2003

ALFies Release Their 2002 Crime Report

During March of 2003, David Barbarash, the officially "retired" spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Front Press Office, put out a press release selling (for $10 a pop) the "ALF 2002 Direct Action Report", an analysis of crimes for which the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and/or the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and other criminals claimed guilt. We didn't send in our $10 to buy the report, but Barbarash did a good job giving us the highlights in his press release. Our biggest criticism? It's too organized. Barbarash breaks it down too much, creating too many subcategories, separating out the ALF and ELF crimes, making it very difficult to see the bigger picture.

First the good news. The ALFie 2002 Direct Action Report declares that there were 100 crimes committed in North America by eco-terrorists, a whopping 30% decrease over 2001. A thank you to law enforcement, prosecutors and judges who have gotten tougher on these criminals. One or two in jail certainly helps reduce the crime spree.

For animal-focused attacks, March was the busiest month with February and December being the slow season. New York and California were hardest hit, followed by long-suffering Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, for the Earth-focused criminals, January was their busiest month, with Oregon their preferred state, followed by Virginia, California and Pennsylvania.

The names used by the criminals remained creative. Along with the old stand-bys of the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts, press releases were sent by individuals calling themselves Activists Working For Animal Rights, Anonymous Activists, Anonymous Anarchists, Pacific ELF, Provisional HLS Campaign, The Frogs, and Nighttime Gardeners. Despite the plethora of names to choose from, guilt for fully 60% of "Earth liberation actions" remained unclaimed.

Huntingdon Life Sciences and its insurance company continued to be targets du jour. Other popular targets included anything and anyone remotely connected to dairy, beef, fur, hunting, trapping, fishing, pets, circuses, restaurants, development, forestry, cars and SUVs, research (both plants and animals). "[P]olice, government and military sites were targeted on 6 occasions each, powerlines in Oregon on 5 occasions, while golfing, education, the Olympics, corporate globalization and sexism ..." were just more reasons for committing crimes.

Ouch. Did They Miss Anyone?

Now the bad news. The report declares that a total of 1500 animals were stolen and abandoned. ALF counted up 1450+ mink, 40+ fox, 16 frogs, 5 minnows, 3 crayfish, 3 ducklings, 1 dog.

We'll count them as road kill.

There were four cases of food tampering while arson was used during fully 38% of the ELF-claimed crimes, "a 33% increase in relative usage from 2001 when fire was used only 25% of the time."

The arsons included fires at family farms, a slaughterhouse ($2 million in damages), a timber equipment company, a pump supply company, automobile dealerships, a Colorado park kiosk ($600,000), the University of Minnesota ($630,000), a country club, the Canadian Liberal government, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police parking structure ($1.5 million in damages), new homes, new townhouses, contruction sites, a USDA research station, police cars, military vehicles and more.

These eco-terrorists are certainly equal-opportunity thugs.

Resist Everything While Accepting Money

The press release announcing the Direct Action Report was distributed via alfpress@resist.ca.

Who are they? http://resist.ca describes itself as a "project of the Resist! Collective" which "grew out of the old Vancouver TAO collective which has now been disbanded. The collective is founded on anarchist principles and makes decisions using con-sensus. Resist! is made up of 5-10 people at any given time and is always looking for new members who want to help with the resist.ca project." [In case you were wondering, TAO stands for Telecommunications for Autonomous Organizing.]

By reading further we learn that, "Resist is part of a newly forming Tech Federation which is currently comprised of TAO/OAT (Toronto), Interactivist (New York City), Mutual Aid (Washington, DC), The Online Policy Group (San Francisco), and the Red Cursor Collective (Seattle). ... More info about the Tech Federation is available at http://notes.techfed.net."

For anarchists, they certainly have a lot of structure. There are software companies out there with less organization.

The site is full of touchy-feely anarchist mumbo jumbo, tirades against competition and rants against capitalism. At odds with the lingo, this anti-capitalist site is crystal clear about the role of capital and labor in the economy.

"It takes money and labour to maintain the hosting services, the hardware and the domain names etc.," declare the business-like resist.ca anarchists. They even have a bank account so that fans are able to mail "a cheque or money order made out to Resist Communications to 312-1707 Charles Street, Vancouver BC, V5L 2T6 – or [deposit] money directly into our credit union account at CCEC (2250 Commercial Dr. account # 7819-6)."

EARTH LIBERATION ACTIONS 2002

Crimes for Earth liberation in North America in 2002 totalled 53, down from 65 in 2001, an 18% decrease. January was by far the busiest month with 10 crimes recorded.

There were 49 crimes in the US, in 16 different states, and 4 in Canada, in 2 provinces. Oregon was the most active state with 10 crimes recorded, followed by Virginia with 7, California had 6 and Pennsylvania recorded 5.
Fire was used in 20 crimes, or 38% of all crimes, a 33% increase in relative usage from 2001 when fire was used only 25% of the time.
The Earth Liberation Front claimed guilt for 14 of the 53 crimes, or 26%, including 1 crime jointly claimed with the Animal Liberation Front. 60% of all Earth liberation crimes went unclaimed.
New developments dominated the issues focussed on with 13 crimes taken against various new homes and building projects. Forest issues accounted for 10 crimes while cars and SUVs took 8. 91 vehicles were targeted.
GMO crops and research and police, government and military sites were targeted on 6 occasions each, powerlines in Oregon on 5 occasions, while golfing, education, the Olympics, corporate globalization and sexism each accounted for 1 crime each.

In Their Own Words: Shocking Quotes from the Mouths of ALF

In Their Own Words: Shocking Quotes from the Mouths of ELF

David Barbarash : Profile of ALF's New Spokesman FCUSA commentary, Oct. 13, 1999.

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

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