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| Animal activists lay claim to Shaklee bombing |
| 2003-10-01 |
| An animal rights group has claimed responsibility for a bombing last week outside the Pleasanton offices of Shaklee Corp., and has pledged to escalate its attacks if ties aren’t severed between Shaklee’s parent company and a laboratory that uses animals for product testing. "Today it is 10 lbs, tomorrow 20 ... until your buildings are nothing more than rubble," a group calling itself the Revolutionary Cells said in its statement. It was the second time in a month the Revolutionary Cells claimed responsibility for bombing a Bay Area company — part of the group’s campaign to stop businesses from associating with Huntingdon Life Sciences, an England-based laboratory that tests pharmaceuticals and chemicals using animals. The activist group has offices in Somerset, N.J. In a "communique" circulated among animal rights organizations late Monday night, the Revolutionary Cells says it left "an approximately 10-pound ammonium nitrate bomb strapped with nails outside Shaklee." That’s very palestinian of them. The Revolutionary Cells, thought to be an offshoot of the Animal Liberation Front, says it left the bomb — despite Shaklee’s animal-friendly policy — because Shaklee’s parent company, Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals, continues to associate with Huntingdon. The statement also saved some of its most threatening language for Chiron Corp., the Emeryville biotechnology company whose headquarters was damaged by two bombs Aug. 28. Referring to Chiron’s board chairman by name, the statement said, "Hey Sean Lance, and the rest of the Chiron team, how are you sleeping? You never know when your house, your car even, might go boom." One word, Sean - bodyguards. As with the Chiron blasts a month earlier, nobody was hurt in the Shaklee explosion, which occurred shortly after 3 a.m. Friday. The bomb shattered glass and damaged a small piece of stucco at the base of the Shaklee headquarters on Willow Road in Pleasanton. Shaklee spokeswoman Jenifer Thompson referred all calls to the FBI. LaRae Quy, an FBI special agent, said Tuesday the agency has opened domestic terrorism investigations into both recent bombings, but hasn’t yet concluded the cases are linked. Why am I not suprised? Components of the bombs that exploded at Chiron and Shaklee have been sent for comparison to an FBI lab in the Washington, D.C., area, said Andrew Tarver, assistant special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ San Francisco division. Evidence from the two investigations will be compared with findings from other bombings nationwide, Tarver said. The investigations can take years. Besides the claim of responsibility, both cases have significant similarities, Tarver said. "If you look at the time and the place and the device, there was an overt attempt to minimize harm" by placing the bombs along exterior walls during late-night hours, Tarver said. So far, but don’t count on it staying that way. The incidents may mark a shift toward more violent forms of protest in the ongoing campaign to disrupt Huntingdon’s business. The animal rights group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty says it does not advocate violence and was alarmed at the tone of the Revolutionary Cells’ claim. "We’ve never seen anything like it before," said Kevin Jonas, a SHAC spokesman in Philadelphia. "In the 25 years that the animal rights movement has had an illegal arm, there always seems to have been a guiding principle of nonviolence. This seems to break with that." Kevin, if you have nonviolent principles, why do you have a illegal arm? |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 ....and they're acting more and more like Woody Harrelson's father. Animal rights wackos have already killed 2 people in the Netherlands, including libertarian politician Pim Fortuyn. It is only a matter of time, probably not much time, before it happens here. There's a bright side, though: With the Alf-nazis directing more of their attacks against private farms and individual people, the likelihood grows that one or more of them will be killed in the act, say, 30'06ed by a mink farmer. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2003-10-1 9:33:57 PM |
| #5 hmmm.. Woody Harrelson's friends strike again. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-10-1 12:18:11 PM |
| #4 One word. Snipers. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-10-1 10:41:57 AM |
| #3 I'd like to get these guys and lock 'em in a cage with a pair of female grizzlies, then shoot spitwads at the grizzlies. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-1 10:39:05 AM |
| #2 I'd sure like to catch some of these jerks in action and personally beat them to a bloody pulp. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-1 10:26:26 AM |
| #1 They're assigning some veteran investigators from the anthrax team to this case. That's why they've already concluded the bombing is foreign terrorism, and are investigating links to Mongolia and Papua New Guinea. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-10-1 9:55:19 AM |