''Who Bombed Judi Bari?'' is an American historical documentary about an assassination attempt on the life of

Judi Bari Judith Beatrice Bari (1949–1997) was an American environmentalist, feminist, and labor leader, primarily active in Northern California after moving to the state in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was the principal organizer of Ear ...

, an American environmental and labor activist, which occurred on May 24, 1990 via a pipe bomb in her car. It was directed by Mary Liz Thomson and produced by

Darryl Cherney Darryl Cherney (born 1956) is an American musician and environmental activist. He is a member of the Earth First! environmental movement. Born and raised in New York City, he lives in Humboldt County, California. Cherney has produced five albu ...

. He is also an environmental activist and was traveling with Bari that day, but was not as severely wounded.

Overview

While driving through

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

on their way to a benefit concert for the

Redwood Summer Organized in 1990 by Earth First! and the Industrial Workers of the World, Redwood Summer was a three-month movement of environmental activism led by Judi Bari aimed at protecting old-growth redwood (''Sequoia sempervirens'') trees from logging by ...

campaign to save California's coast redwood trees, activists

and

were injured when a

pipe bomb A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device which uses a tightly sealed section of pipe (material), pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple Explosive material#Low explosives, low explosi ...

detonated under the driver's seat of Bari's car. Bari, who was driving, was critically injured. Oakland police and the FBI approached the explosion as a terrorist incident, and arrested Bari and Cherney. In their investigation, they tried to prove that the activists were transporting an explosive device that accidentally detonated. The two were never charged with a crime They filed a civil rights lawsuit in 1991 against these law enforcement organizations for violation of their constitutional rights. In 2002 they won the lawsuit (Bari had died of breast cancer in 1997). Cherney and the late Bari's estate were awarded $4.4 million, to be paid by the FBI and Oakland Police Department. The authorities allegedly did not investigate any other suspects. Discovery during the lawsuit revealed crime scene photos that clearly showed the bomb was located under Bari's seat, not in the back seat as investigators had alleged. In 2012, a federal judge ordered the FBI not to destroy another pipe bomb that they had held as evidence after it partially detonated in May 1990 at a lumber mill in Cloverdale about a week before the car bombing. Investigators agreed the two bombs were built by the same person. Ben Rosenfeld, attorney for Darryl Cherney, had requested that an outside lab perform DNA testing on the Cloverdale bomb. The FBI said it had not conducted such testing, and the judge upheld Rosenfeld's request.

Reception

The film premiered at the 2012

San Francisco Green Film Festival The San Francisco Green Film Festival was an environmental film festival which was held annually from 2011 to 2019. History The festival was founded by Rachel Caplan, who had previously worked for the Edinburgh Film Festival, the San Francisc ...

Awards

* CINE Golden Eagle Award (Documentary Feature 2012) * Long Island Film Festival (Special Jury Award 2012) * Malibu International Film Festival (Best Documentary 2012) * Best Documentary (Santa Cruz Film Festival 2012) * Best Documentary (Desert Rocks Film Festival 2012) * Best Feature Film (Davis Film Festival 2012)

References

External links

* Official website * * {{Rotten Tomatoes
Film trailer
2012 documentary films American documentary films 2012 films Documentary films about law in the United States Documentary films about United States history Documentary films about California Documentary films about crime in the United States Documentary films about activists 2010s English-language films 2010s American films