It just so happens I am following the court proceedings for University of Washington burning in press clippings. The lawyers have them turning over on each other like snakes in a pit.
Seattle Times
Witness tells of "panic" during 2001 arson at UW
By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter
February 15, 2008
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004183715_uwarson15m.htmlTACOMA — A participant in the 2001 University of Washington arson
attack testified in U.S. District Court Thursday about a sabotage
effort filled with tense moments, including the getaway sedan
sideswiping a parked car.
"It was slight contact, but it felt huge to me," said Lacey
Phillabaum, in the first public testimony about the events surrounding
the arson attack. "... There was panic."
Phillabaum, a Spokane native, is a key prosecution witness in the
trial of Briana Waters, 32, accused of being part of a five-person
Earth Liberation Front team that caused more than $1.5 million in
damages to the UW's Center for Urban Horticulture.
Waters is a former student at The Evergreen State College who now
lives in Oakland, Calif., where she teaches music and plays violin in
a band.
Defense attorneys have said Waters was nowhere near the UW in the
predawn hours of May 21, 2001. She has pleaded not guilty to federal
charges that could result in a mandatory sentence of 35 years.
Phillabaum testified that Waters attended several planning meetings in
early May and helped lease the sedan that took the team from Olympia
to Seattle.
Phillabaum said Waters also served as a lookout while others broke
into the building and set two incendiary devices fashioned out of
alarm clocks, water bladders filled with fuel and other items.
In a plea agreement that will likely result in a three- to five-year
prison sentence, Phillabaum has pledged cooperation with federal
prosecutors. She has already begun serving time.
Phillabaum said cooperation has been "excruciating," and that she has
"a lot of sympathy" for Waters and others indicted in what the Justice
Department has portrayed as a wide-ranging conspiracy that carried out
more than a dozen acts of arson and sabotage.
Phillabaum, a former University of Oregon student and writer for
several publications, said group members had at one time vowed never
to turn one another in. But Phillabaum felt "like the truth was going
to come out and didn't want to spend 35 years in prison."
Phillabaum gave these details in her testimony:
Beginning in 2000 the group held a series of five meetings in
different states that were a mix of philosophical talk about the need
for direct action mixed with hands-on training on how to solder wires
for incendiary devices.
These meetings were organized by Bill "Avalon" Rodgers, a key figure
in the underground who committed suicide in an Arizona jail after
being taken into custody there.
Despite some division over the strategy, the group eventually chose to
target the office of UW professor Toby Bradshaw, who they mistakenly
believed was genetically engineering poplar trees.
The UW arson, which destroyed valuable research, was planned as part
of a double hit that included burning buildings at a poplar-tree farm
in Oregon.
Phillabaum recalls driving in early May to Olympia for a series of
weekend meetings that took place at a Denny's on The Evergreen State
College campus and in an outbuilding behind what she believed to be
the home of Waters.
During one discussion, Jennifer Kolar, another participant in the
arson, wanted to reduce the amount of fuel to try to confine the
spread of the blaze.
But Rodgers pressed for using more fuel to make sure fire
extinguishers couldn't put out the blaze. He won out in that debate,
Phillabaum said.
The blaze would later destroy the building and its contents, including
rare plants and a wide range of scientific work that had nothing to do
with Bradshaw's poplar research.
Phillabaum said she was unnerved by a bike parked outside the UW
building as they prepared their break-in. Rodgers assured her the
building was empty.
Phillabaum also was surprised by the contents of a plastic tub that
Rodgers passed out of the building. She opened the lid to find snakes,
creatures Rodgers did not want harmed.
Phillabaum said Waters kept watch in the bushes with a radio to relay
any security threats.
After the incendiary devices were set, everyone piled into the leased
car. Phillabaum said she wanted to just leave the area, unnerved by
the car accident. But Rodgers wanted to park nearby and pick up the
chatter of first responders on a scanner.
"I remember a firefighter trying to decide whether to continue
fighting from the roof," Phillabaum said. "It was terrifying to hear
him in this dangerous situation."
But Rodgers had a different reaction. "Avalon [Rodgers] seemed
excited," Phillabaum said.
Phillabaum is scheduled to resume her testimony this morning, with the
defense scheduled to cross-examine her.
Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@...
Copyright (c) 2008 The Seattle Times Company