What You Didntt See On TV...

Videotape showing police applying pepper spray to the faces of environmentalist protesters caused a national stir when aired by tv news programsbut it only showed one side of the story.

"This is not a group of innocent school children as the ACLU might have people believe," said Congressman Frank Riggs (R-Ca.), whose Eureka, Ca., districtoffice was attacked and vandalized by paramilitary-style environmentalists, some wearing black ski masks, black outfits and combat boots. "For several minutes, nearly a dozen people terrorized two female members of my staff. After ransacking the office, they quickly ran away, leaving behind the four protesters who appear in the police videotape."

Police released a flyer circulated throughout the California Redwood region by Earth First before the incident in early November rallying forces to "join the demonstrators in the forest

HAR and get arrested" because "the more of us working through the system the more $ it costs all the people too weak to do what is right. MORE ARRESTS SPELL SUCCESS!''

"Pacific Lumber logging equipment is very expensive and has fragile hydraulic lines easily cut. Every truck decommissioned may save the lives of hundreds of trees (can you hear them scream?)," the flyer noted, also urging demonstrators to "protest the injustice being perpetrated against (Unabomber suspect) Theodore Kazynski by right wingers,"

Concluded Riggs: "As the flyer released by police shows, these people are not the harmless. brave defenders of First Amendment rights they are now claiming. The invasion of my office was part of an escalating campaign of intimidation, violence and destruction of private property that these so-called environmentalists see as a path to stopping all logging in the u.s."