On February 16, 2001,
Jared McIntyre, a
Long Island high school senior, pleaded
guilty to
arson. He denied any connection to the "
Earth Liberation Front", but his
attacks had
ELF written all over it.
Police have found
evidence on the
crime scenes linking him to the
arson of nine Long Island
construction sites and the
sabotage of onsite
construction equipment, as well as the
vandalism of a biotech
cornfield at the
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Painted on the scorched wall of one of the
houses was
"If you build it, we will burn it."
ELF is not a formal organization, instead being a loosely-linked band of radical eco-terrorists, there really is no "ringleader" to act as an idelogical leader, leaving these criminals to intepret the ELF "guidelines" for themselves. And they tend to take a very liberal intepretation of it; many of the construction sites Jared McIntyre torched were in fact modest, middle-class homes, not luxury mansions. Non-profit academic research institutions were destroyed because certain ELF members are idelogically opposed to "gene theft". This makes ELF especially dangerous because there is no leader to restrain the ultra-radical elements. Considering this is already a radical organization, it is no wonder that the FBI declared war on the ELF.
The ELF and the ALF is essentially a single organization, as ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh admits, "The main difference between ELF and ALF is their names." ELF and ALF spawned from Earth First!; ELF and ALF apparently thought that Earth First! was not radical enough. ELF, like most radical environmental organizations, relies entirely on rhetoric and does not bother justifying their claims with scientific evidence, their modus operandi seems to be "burn first, ask never".
Sooner or later the ELF's "nonviolent" acts will claim a human life.
Update: June 2, 2001
The ELF finally claimed responsibility for two fires last month that destroyed the University of Washington's urban horticulture center in Seattle and a similar laboratory in Clatskanie, Oregon, causing over $3 million in structural damage as well as the loss of years of research on wetlands restoration and endangered species protection. The terrorists claimed that "genetic pollution" was the ideological motivation behind the attacks.