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Title: Oregon prison springs eco-saboteur 'Free' by mistake, then takes him back (Charleton Street in Eugene, Oregon currently closed because of suspicious device)
Source:
oregonlive.com
URL Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/inde ... oms_just_another_word_for.html
Published: Dec 17, 2009
Author: By Bryan Denson, The Oregonian
Post Date: 2009-12-17 23:01:02 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 194
Comments: 11
The man who drew the longest prison sentence in U.S. history for eco-sabotage walked out of prison this morning. After years of appeals, Jeffrey M. Luers, known to Eugene’s anarchist clan as “Free,” was just that. But just as quickly, he was sent back to prison. The Oregon Department of Corrections acknowledged today that it mistakenly allowed Luers to take advantage of a new law, House Bill 3508, which grants reduced sentences for certain classes of inmates. Luers’ sentence for arson made him ineligible for early release, said prisons spokeswoman Jennifer Black, in Salem. “It’s a mistake we wish hadn’t happened,” she said. “We’re reviewing processes and hoping that it just does not happen again.” Luers was released from Columbia River Correctional Institution in Northeast Portland this morning and given 24 hours to check in with his parole officer in Lane County. He checked in this afternoon, where he learned of the error. Authorities took the 30-year-old radical environmentalist back to prison, a rude reversal for those who worked years to get Luers out. The day began with Luers’ supporters writing on the Friends of Jeff Luers Web site: “We are still pinching ourselves.” Luers’ appellate lawyer in Salem, Shawn Wiley, weighed in with an e-mail comment to The Oregonian: “This day is long overdue. Jeff is a kind, thoughtful, intelligent young man, and our community benefits much more from his presence in it rather than behind bars." But their joy was short lived. Luers' saga began in 2001, when Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure sentenced him to 22 years, 8 months in prison after finding him guilty of two crimes in Eugene -- attempting to set fire to a gasoline tanker owned by a petroleum distributor, then firebombing three pickup trucks at a Chevy dealership. The sentence drew gasps because it was by far the stiffest punishment handed to an eco-saboteur in the United States. Across the nation, environmental activists and civil libertarians expressed outrage. At that time, Luers’ crimes were paltry compared to those committed by better known eco-saboteurs. Rod Coronado, for instance, who waged a multi-state arson campaign against the fur industry, was sentenced to less than five years in federal prison. After Luers was sent to prison, arsons by underground groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front ceased in Oregon, once a hotbed of environmentally motivated firebombings and vandalism. Law enforcement authorities said Luers’ long sentence served as a deterrent to those who might consider setting fire to SUVs, mink ranches or Forest Service installations. In a phone interview from prison in September 2001, Luers told The Oregonian that the gravity of his sentence did not strike him until he lay in a prison bunk one day realizing his parents might die before he is freed. Luers told the newspaper that he set fire to the pickups to protest gas-guzzling vehicles and the disproportionate amount of pollution they belch into the air. He described the arson at Eugene’s Romania Chevrolet as a final, desperate act of an environmental crusade that began benignly with letters to politicians, door-to-door work with the Sierra Club and tree sits to prevent logging. “It was an escalation to a level I’d never gone before and I could never live down,” Luers told The Oregonian. “At that point, for me, I could no longer say I was an activist. In my mind, I’d taken it to the next level.” The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in February 2007 that Lane County must re-sentence Luers because Velure erred by convicting him of two counts of arson and imposing consecutive prison terms under Oregon’s mandatory-minimum sentencing law. Lawyers negotiated an agreement that re-sentenced Luers to 10 years in prison, which would have brought him home this Christmas. Passage of House Bill 3508 this year gave Luers even more good news. He was one of the roughly 2,000 Oregon prisoners to get notice recently that they were eligible for a fractional reduction of their sentence, Black said. For Luers, this meant freedom a few months early. But today’s foul-up nixed his freedom. Luers is scheduled for release on Dec. 16.
Poster Comment: Eugene Police are in the process of using a remote robot to remove a device with "characteristics of an explosive device" from Broadway and Charleton Street with a remote robot. This is occurring at the site of the riot over the cutting of 60 large trees which was the largest story in Eugene, Oregon in 1997. Buildings nearby have been evacuated and streets nearby closed until the device can be removed. I happened to just happen across this scene which is underway a short time ago. I was one of the sitters who took part in the sit and riot back in 1996.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Eugene Police responded to a suspicious pipe bomb in the area of Broadway and Charleton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Officers blocked roads in the area. As of about 7:30 p.m. the incident was cleared. http://downtowneugene.kval.com/node/67921
My my.... The things that happen by coincidence.
Torch a business some slob sweated for. Fat load of good that did him.
I believe the explosive devices on the oil trucks at Tyree Heating oil in a residential neighborhood he placed about the same time and was convicted of doing that could of torched several blocks upset authorities more than the Romania Chevy fire. Also there had been another SUV arson that was bigger then Luer's when he had been convicted but had not been sentenced yet.
The sentence drew gasps because it was by far the stiffest punishment handed to an eco-saboteur in the United States. Across the nation, environmental activists and civil libertarians expressed outrage. Eco-saboteur my ass, he's a domestic terrorist and should have been bludgeoned to death with a tire-iron and then hung from a streetlight as an example to the rest of those Earth First! granola-eaters.
_________________________________________________________________________ We3ll, the reason I have such a comfort zone in posting this is Luers and I have not seen eye to eye long before he was caught. He was involved with the Earth Liberation Front, and I Eart First! which is a non-violent civil disobedience oriented movement. Luers was way to impatient and angry to take the long term struggle route. ;-) We are not on tense terms, but was did not talk at all while he was in prison, nor did I contribute to his fund to help him.
the article was written in October and the last sentence says Luers was due to get out Dec 16. are you thinking, since today is the 17th, that it was him who placed the explosive device?
The Register-Guard Appeared in print: Friday, Dec 18, 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- News: Local: Story -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the second time this year, state prison officials on Wednesday released Eugene environmental activist and convicted arsonist Jeffrey “Free” Luers from custody. This time, it was no mistake. “It seems that they are going to let him stay out this time,” said his attorney, Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Eugene. On Oct. 2, prison officials set Luers free from the Columbia River Correction Institution in Portland because they erroneously believed that he qualified for a sentence reduction under a new “earned-time” policy. Luers, 30, checked in with his parole officer in Eugene a few hours later. That’s when he learned of the state’s blunder, and was told that he would have to spend another 21/2 months in prison. Regan said that fiasco made Luers less than certain that he would remain a free man following his early morning release Wednesday. “He was cautious about being too optimistic about getting out,” Regan said. “But he is out, and he’s unpacking his stuff now. He’s attempting to adjust back to a normal life.” Regan said Luers plans to live in Eugene and take classes next spring at Lane Community College. He eventually intends to apply to the University of Oregon’s landscape architecture program, she said. “He’s really focused on trying to get back the 10 years of his life that he lost,” Regan said. Luers had been behind bars since June 2000, when Eugene police arrested him in connection with a fire that burned three sport utility vehicles at the former Romania truck lot, and an attempted arson at Tyree Oil Co. in Eugene. In 2001, former Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure sentenced Luers to 22 years and eight months in prison. Many activists characterized Luers as a political prisoner, and considered the punishment disproportionately harsh because no one was injured and the damage to the SUVs was estimated at only $28,000. Among the groups that questioned whether Luers’ sentence was politically motivated were Eugene’s Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International. In 2007, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned Luers’ sentence, ruling that Velure improperly sentenced him to back-to-back prison terms for each of the 10 felonies he was convicted of committing. Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Billings restructured the sentence in 2008, which allowed Luers to be freed this month. Luers told Billings during a court hearing last year that he never intended to instill fear or a sense of victimization in the people he targeted, but instead wanted to promote change through “radical struggle.” “I can now say with all honesty that I was wrong to think that arson would inspire social change,” Luers said in court. Luers and his co-defendant, Craig Andrew Marshall, were arrested minutes after the Romania fire was reported. Eugene police had followed the pair from a storage unit where Luers lived and saw the men park near the Romania lot on Franklin Boulevard. Investigators found incense sticks, wooden matches, thread and sponges that matched two firebombs that failed to ignite in May 2000 at the Tyree Oil depot in the Whiteaker neighborhood. One of the Tyree bombs was placed under the fuel tank of a fume-filled tanker truck. Had it ignited, the device could have produced significant damage, investigators said. Marshall pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson and possession of a destructive device in the Romania case. He served more than four years in prison. http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/24269466-41/luers-prison-eugene-romania-fire.csp Here's today's local story. No Ma'am, he did not; some other person did that yesterday. I spoke to him today and he is out and doing quite well. ;-)
What an idjit. Not only futile but stoopid. There are real environmental issues, but that is not addressed by bombing pick-ups. All that does is scare and piss people off. It has a NEGATIVE affect on legitimate environmental concerns - such as the toxins belched out by coal fired power plants, agricultural pollution from toxic petrochemical pesticides and herbicides, the plume of radioactive waste leaching into the water table around the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, etc., .... Of course eco-PsyOps has convinced the weak minded to worry about non-problems and focus on things which have little impact. It is the epitomy of the old communist proverb that the way to control the opposition is to lead it. And that holds very true for the environut industry which is largely financed by the biggest polluters so that they can keep the nutcases running around chasing their own tails.
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France
I still remember the revelation about the head of one of the local "environmental" groups here in the Portland area - he had a 3,000+ square foot home (Redwood is one which the environuts worry endlessly about) a REDWOOD sided home, and drove a "filthy" gas guzzling SUV. (For those who know lumber - Redwood is a choice wood both because of its beauty and resistance to rot.) The environmental movement as it is today is the same situation as the Civil Rights movement - co-opted and financed by the elite for other Social Control Agendas. Which is why I still call myself a Conservationist and look upon the environmentalist label with total contempt.
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France
That's how people end up dead. There is a world of difference between destroying private property when a specific injury has been made and doing it for a "cause" that injures nobody. Eventually, such persons end up in the ground as a result of their own actions. As an aside, a high-power compound bow takes care of vermin quite silently and from quite a distance.
COMRADE! Why are you not showing your Party affiliation and showing proper respect for Dear Leader? Put your Barackstika armband on RIGHT NOW!
Suspicious Pipe Bomb Cleared Submitted by Staci Vollmer on Thu, 2009-12-17 19:50
#2. To: All (#0)
#3. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
#4. To: randge (#3)
#5. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Luers' saga began in 2001, when Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure sentenced him to 22 years, 8 months in prison after finding him guilty of two crimes in Eugene -- attempting to set fire to a gasoline tanker owned by a petroleum distributor, then firebombing three pickup trucks at a Chevy dealership.
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#6. To: X-15 (#5)
#7. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
#8. To: christine, all (#7)
Activist who set fire to SUVs released from prison By Jack Moran
#9. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Luers told the newspaper that he set fire to the pickups to protest gas-guzzling vehicles and the disproportionate amount of pollution they belch into the air.
#10. To: All (#9)
(Edited)
#11. To: Ferret Mike (#6)
Luers was way to impatient and angry to take the long term struggle route.
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